


A Scout to Lov3

by Dragon_Mage



Series: W3 Ar3 Al1v3 [2]
Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-09-27
Packaged: 2018-11-07 07:24:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 28,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11054145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragon_Mage/pseuds/Dragon_Mage
Summary: When robots stop coming, Scout finds himself more bored than ever. Nobody cares. Nobody wants to be around him, let alone play with him. He feels like a kid looking for a friend on his venture to find somebody who can care about him.This story will be deleted from AO3 on [December 1] to become part of an original work. This piece will be part of an anthology of short stories.More info: https://mageleartist.wixsite.com/treasurehuntpp/fanfiction-message





	1. Wall

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys are looking forward to more mercenaries being tortured over being inhuman!  
> You're not? What are you doing here then?
> 
> Don't worry, no major character deaths in this one. I promise. :3 <3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scout wanders off and finds a very strange building.

Middle of nowhere, 1994

The silence on the horizon was eerie at best. For Scout, this was the best time to get some playtime in. Not that there was anybody around to play with. It was just him, with his ball and his bat. He did not need a glove, because what was the point?

He tossed the ball up and watched it go. His eyes followed it, watching it hit the arch before coming back down. His stance dropped a little, with the bat in both hands. He continued following it down, until it was within the route of the bat’s swing, bringing it to clap against the smooth wood in his hands.

The ball flew with a satisfying “crack” that sent it into the barn he was aiming for. The ball bounced off of the barn’s wall and seemed to bound across the ground of its own accord. He did not bother chasing it, instead grabbing another ball from the bucket he brought out.

There was nobody to play ball with anymore. After things had shifted from men to machines, their team was limited to only fighting those machines. Though they had been enemies, sword to the end to be that way, the RED Scout had always enjoyed the BLU Scout’s company. Perhaps they had shared a kinship, but could not admit it, lest they had problems with their bosses. The enjoyment he got from the other Scout was hidden beneath taunts and insults he flared at him.

So much for that though. The BLU had been fired off as fast as the RED had, but for some reason the RED team had been hired back on for this new job faster than they could leave. They were not given much option to leave otherwise. It almost seemed like trying to leave was a futile effort.

He took a deep breath as he tossed another ball up and sent it flying to the barn. This time it hit the edge, flying off the other way. He was distracted again. If he wanted his aim to get any better, then he had to stay focused. The robots would not just run into fly balls all willy nilly.

He heard a weird noise come from the base. He flinched and listened, curious if it would happen again. He dropped a ball in the bucket and abandoned it. He was too curious about what was going on.

He explored the hallways of the base, until he came to the recreation room. Everybody else was gathered there, looking at a monitor. Scout felt rather confused at this.

“What’s everybody doing?” he asked, confoundedly.

“…and as far as Mann Co is concerned, you are all fired!” the Saxton Hale’s face and voice disappeared from view as the monitor shut off.

“Are we getting fired?!” he asked with surprise. That was a sudden change, why hadn’t anybody let him know that the boss was calling.

“No, Scout,” the Spy rose from his seat, “We’re getting a vacation.”

Without another word, the others got up and started leaving. They just made their way out in a bustle, not really caring that they had left Scout out of the conversation. That was fine, they probably did not realize he was not in the room. They probably just had to focus on the boss guy, and they would have told him about this later.

Well this was cool. He took his bat back outside to practice some more. He was looking forward to vacation, not that he knew what he would do with it. Maybe the others would go visit family or go to the beach or something. The beach sounded nice, with cool babes and stuff. He imagined the guys would be wearing nothing but swim trunks, and he wanted to be involved in whatever _they_ were doing!

“I’m going on vacation!” he hooted as he whacked a ball into the barn.

 

Later that night, he packed his things and got ready for tomorrow. He would be hoofing it, unless he could get a ride from somebody, all the way to the next town. He figured he could get a ride or catch a bus from there. He could not recall if there was a train station over there or not.

It was no big deal for him. He was a runner. He would run his way there.

 

To his dismay, the next morning he found that the others were boarding up windows and sealing doors. They would not answer his questions either, busily boarding up every possible entrance. All the while they just ignored him like he was not even there.

He managed to find a window that was not yet boarded up and slipped out of it. It was on the second floor, so he had to be super careful not to fall. He fell anyways, injuring his arm in the process.

“Ow,” he said, poking the arm.

He hissed, but continued on his way. The injury would heal. If it was not done healing by the end of his vacation, then he would be back to have Medic heal him with his medigun. For now, he could deal with a little pain, because he was thinking about the beach and the waves. That would be tons of fun.

He made his way through the battle area. He trudged past places he used to know so well. He would never forget them. It was a place he could be his wild self, with a shotgun and a bat in hand.

He smiled as he thought of all the victories. He would come back to those eventually. For now, he was on vacation. It was time for him to stop thinking about the stress of work and focus on what was really important. He would have so much fun on the beach, going swimming and meeting new people. That would be an awesome life to live too.

 

He was far from the base when he stumbled upon a large building. He had been thinking about the beach when he came upon it. There were massive walls that scaled upwards of about forty feet. He stepped back, trying to get a better look at it.

“Damn, that’s big,” he noted aloud. He turned and decided to go around it.

He must have been walking for fifteen minutes when he realized that the edge of the building still looked like it was so far away. Why was the corner so far away? Was it possible that it was playing with his mind?

He ran backwards, heading away from the wall, to try and look at the corners of the building better. Sure enough, he could see both corners. They did not look that far apart from each other either. They were within easy walking distance of each other too.

Maybe somebody was messing with him. They were moving the building while he walked. Well, there was no way that they could move it while he ran. He was fast, and anything that could move a building could not be faster.

He took off like a fire cracker, shooting towards the corner. He kept his eye on it, no matter how much it moved. He kept following it, chasing it. It could not escape him.

 

He was not sure how long he was running. He just ran and ran, even when it hurt. He was running out of energy, and finally had to come to a shuddering stop. He took deep calming breaths, or at least he tried to make them calming.

He started walking, wishing he could just catch up to that corner. How long had he been chasing it now? It had to have been hours. He looked up to see the sun high in the sky. There was no way the sun could have gotten that far in a few mere minutes.

“Give ‘em hell boys!” a robot Soldier’s voice cried out.

He looked around and saw such a robot far off. He crouched, trying to stay out of their attention. He did not really come armed. He was not expecting to come across any robots. He just wanted to go on vacation and see some babes on the beach.

“Not like that, Soldier,” a medicbot stepped around the corner to correct the soldierbot, “We cannot be blowing them up.”

“Soldier should stay behind,” a sniperbot and a spybot joined them.

“Agreed,” said the medicbot.

“I will not be oppressed by the lowlifes of this team!” the soldierbot protested.

“This is not questionable,” the spybot argued, “You either change your arsenal, or you stay behind.”

The soldierbot sounded like it was grumbling, before it disappeared around the corner. It came back with a shotgun in hand, loaded and ready for a fight. It was loading the weapon when he cheered again. They all headed off, back towards Scout’s base.

At first he thought that this was bad news. Then he remembered that his employers had sent them on vacation. They were not supposed to be guarding anything. They were supposed to leave it. Maybe his employers had given up.

He started towards the corner, keeping an eye out for the bots who might come back. He put a hand on the wall, since he did not want to lose track of it, while his eyes were elsewhere. He was surprised when his hand hit a handle. He looked down, but saw nothing, but his hand clearly felt the handle.

He felt around, carefully touching and feeling the cold metal, until he pushed the lever down. It clicked and the wall opened, a piece of it magically turning into a door.

“What the hell?” he asked himself, as he stepped into the dimly lit interior of the building.

He let the door behind him close, before taking a deep breath. So he would be going through instead. This could work though, as long as he was careful. He did not want to run into any bots.

He stepped forward, carefully making his way down a hall. He could not believe it had fooled him. Now he was sneaking through the whole thing. It was scary and made him tremble.

“Alright, just…just leave it there, okay?” he heard a guy’s voice.

It was not just any kind of guy. This sounded like the kind of guy he grew up with. Maybe the kind of guy he knew from when he was a kid or something. They had to have been from the same city, if not the same state. That accent was simply unmistakable.

He headed towards it. He figured if there was somebody in here, they would know the way out. No less, if there were any actual humans in here, it would be a change from the mercenaries he worked with every day as well as the robots. He did not want anything to do with robots anymore.

He stopped around a corner when he heard the guy speaking, “Hey, do you hear that?”

“No,” a big deep Russian accent came from the other side of an open doorway. It could have been the Heavy Weapons Guy for all he could tell. They sounded so similar.

“I thought I heard footsteps,” feet moved towards the door. He could hear the shoes scuffling closer.

“You are hearing things,” the Russian man replied.

“No,” the guy said sternly, “I’m pretty sure I heard something. I’m pretty sure it was a _metal_ kind of something.”

“Like said,” the Russian man sounded like he was shifting in his seat. He sounded like a big man, with a lot of weight to disburse on the couch or chair he was sitting on. “Is nothing.”

“Scout!” a drunken man exclaimed, “You don’t need to take **shit** from this guy!” He sounded like Demoman did, only while he was absolutely hammered. This guy must have been wasted, from the way he sounded.

The guy sighed, “You’re drunk man.”

The Scotsman laughed, “That’s why I love ya!”

“Why do you think we are sitting here?” the big Russian man asked.

“Because those guys hate us? They think we’re loud and annoying!” the guy said, irritatedly.

“Loud yes,” the Russian man agreed, “Heavy is not quiet on toes. Demoman is drunk. Scout is blabbermouth. Not big surprise.”

“Yea, well this mission would already be over, if I was in there!” the guy exclaimed.

“Scout, pick up Demoman,” the Russian man ordered.

“What? No! You do it!” the guy argued.

So, he was a Scout, was he? That was interesting. Scout himself was growing more intrigued, inching slowly towards the edge. He wanted so badly to just peer around the edge of the doorway to see what was going on. He wanted to see what they were like, especially if they were anything like the mercenaries back at base.

“Scout! You are faster! You are also closer! Pick him up before Demoman drowns in vomit,” the big man was getting onto his feet.

“Alright alright!” the Scout protested.

“Very good,” the Heavy growled.

“Jeez,” the guy grumbled.

Scout paused, wondering how he would approach them. How would they feel about some random Scout wandering in here? What if they worked for somebody else entirely? That could be bad.

He decided to remain hidden, however he still wanted a look at them. He would slowly peek around the corner to look at them. He would see what they were like.

“There!” he peered around just in time to see the guy plop a Demoman on a couch. He gaped in awe as the Scout turned to a great big man, burly and thick with muscle, to ask him if he was pleased.

He had only a moment, before something changed. Something altered his vision, or perhaps his perspective. They were bots. Their voices were robotic. Their bodies were metal. They looked like they were robots pretending to be humans.

He gaped, disbelieving what he just saw. He could have sworn he saw humans just a moment ago. He heard their voices before. They had been normal as any human was normal. There was no way they were robots. How was this happening?

“Scoutbot,” the demobot grumbled.

“No…there’s no bot in here,” the guy – apparently a scoutbot – turned to the demobot.

“You’re going to get us killed one of these days,” the demobot growled.

“Nah, I’m pretty sure that _you_ and _your drinking_ is going to get us killed one of these days,” the scoutbot retorted, snidely.

So much for being a cool guy. He was just another scoutbot. A cold hearted scoutbot no less.

Bots don’t feel, after all. Bots don’t have sympathy or empathy. That was why he did not feel for the other guy who was going through addiction.

He was just another cold metal shell who cared about nobody and nothing. They were just robots. They did robot stuff. They did not feel like humans do. They could not feel like Scout did.

They did truly give him a bit of a terror though. He was scared of what might happen if they caught him snooping around there. They were cold and heartless machines, after all. They would not care if he screamed and cried about being afraid. They would kill him. Worse, they might make his death slow and painful.

“Should rethink drinking so much,” the heavybot stated.

“Yea, like, _way_ rethink it,” the scoutbot agreed with a nod.

“I don’t need your sass!” the demobot pointed to them accusatorily.

“We don’t need a drunkard!” the scoutbot threw its hands into the air for emphasis of just how done with this situation it was.

“Heavy understands,” the big robot said, “Heavy knows what it’s like. This job is stressful. Life can be hard. You just want to sit back and open cold drink. But we must be strong for the team. You understand?”

“I think the big guy is saying that we get why you drink. We just need you to not drink so much. Got it pally?” the scoutbot demanded, “Like, you could just be on the battlefield shooting and drinking…and suddenly the enemy walks _right_ past you! And you know what? You don’t even notice, because you’re too drunk to even care!”

“I’m not a problem on the field! I do my job!” the demobot protested.

Scout was not really sure why he was still there listening. It was just so interesting. It was the first time he had seen something so uniquely interesting in a long time. All of his teammates felt so robotic compared to this. They were all dull and boring, none of them friendly or even snide. But these robots were quite entertaining in their senseless bickering. It was senseless because they were going around in circles, Scout could tell that they would not convince the demobot not to drink so much, and they were all machines anyways so alcohol did not have the same effect on them.

“What if a spybot came in here?” the scoutbot asked.

“It could happen,” the heavybot nodded in agreement.

“If you even bumped into him, you might not even notice!” the scoutbot explained, “You’re too drunk to do anything about it! Not to mention you would not even care. You would not even realize what was happening. Then? Bam! Dagger in your back! Nobody wants that!”

“Nobody wants that,” the heavybot echoed in agreement.

“I hear ye lads, but we have trouble,” the demobot said, sitting up on the couch.

“We won’t bother you about drinking off the battlefield,” the scoutbot went on, gesturing defensively with both hands, “We are just done with babysitting you when we should be getting stuff done! You’re on the job and you’re drunk! You’re drunker than a…a uh…well…I don’t know!”

“As drunk as stone is hard,” the heavybot offered a simile.

“Right!” the scoutbot nodded to the heavybot, “You’re really…really…really really drunk. When you’re drunk, you see things. Or…you don’t see things. You miss a lot of what’s going on. You think real slow, like a sloth. And in the end, how do you think it makes us feel? Tell me something, do you think that it’s helpful when you’re passing out because you’ve had a few too many bottles of whiskey?”

“Heavy understands love of good whiskey. Heavy loves Russian vodka. Is something from home. Demoman must understand, we are trying to work and we cannot work if we must babysit you,” the heavybot spoke up, in an almost calm voice.

The demobot looked up at the other two bots, guiltily, “Ahh…lads…I’m sorry! I’m real sorry! I’ve been awful to ya! You’ve done nothing but good for me. And we’re sitting here instead of going out there. We’d probably be more use to them if’n I was sober and you lot were quiet.”

“I’m quiet! I can be quiet! I’ll be quiet as a mouse! Watch this!” the scoutbot rambled.

“Scout, do not hold breath,” the heavybot patted the scoutbot’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” the demoman went on, “If I was a better man, we would be getting things done.”

“Is okay,” the heavybot nodded to him.

“No it’s not!” the demoman protested, “I’m sitting here drunk! I have to be babysat! I don’t even know where I left my booze. The last place I remember being was at home with me ma. I don’t know where we even are or what we’re doing.”

“We are to wait in wall while others go to uninstall robots,” the heavybot explained.

“What?” the demobot looked up at him, bewilderedy.

“Like…there’s something in their heads?” the scoutbot pointed to his own head, “And we gotta uninstall it so they shut down properly or something. It like, keeps them from shutting down completely or whatever. Engineer was being too particular about details.”

“Ah…Engineer went with them too, didn’t he?” the demobot asked.

“Actually, he is upstairs,” the heavybot answered.

“There is an upstairs in here?” the scoutbot exclaimed, “Whoa! This place is huge! How did they even manage to build something like this? It’s like…ginormous! I thought the upper area was just…you know…wall!”

“Is very big,” the heavybot nodded in agreement.

“Now, lads…tell me something,” the demobot requested.

“Sure thing,” the scoutbot responded.

“Turn your arses around and tell me what you bloody see,” the demobot pointed at the door.

“What do you mean?” the scoutbot asked.

The heavybot turned, lights turning to Scout. Terror struck him as he realized that he had overstayed his welcome. The heavybot touched the scoutbot’s shoulder and the smaller bot turned to look.

“It’s a scoutbot!” the scoutbot exclaimed, grabbing his scattergun.

Scout turned and fled in terror. He was too scared to process what the scoutbot had said, he just ran. There was no time to think about it or look back. Scout was unarmed, after all.


	2. I Do Not Want to Die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scout realizes what he really is and is presented with the notion that acknowledging reality means he is going to die. He does not want to die.

He rushed through the hallway and took a side corridor. All the while, his heart pounded in his chest and especially in his ears. He felt like the world was going to run him over with a giant truck the side of a mecha tank. That was a thing right? Mecha tanks totally had to be a thing, since mecha engineers were a thing.

There was a long set of stairs leading up to the next floor, which would probably slow him down and not lead him out the way he wanted to go, but he took them. He only hoped the stairs would slow the heavybot down. Heavybots never seemed good at taking stairs, so this might be a way to narrow down the threat that was coming after him.

That was the heavybot taken care of, now to deal with the demobot and the scoutbot. He rushed forward, trying to think of some way to slow them down. That was when he started passing a tall stack of beer crates. What they were doing there, he had no idea. All he knew was that if a demobot was programmed to like booze, then it would likely stop to booze up.

He grabbed a lower crate, giving it a forceful shove. The crate he had snapped open and the rest crumpled down. Crates cracked and broke open. The smell of alcohol filled the air as some of the glass bottles broken open. Ultimately, there was plenty of access to booze there, enough for a demobot to become distracted by it.

He hurried on, hoping he still had time. He still had no idea how to handle the scoutbot. Scoutbots were fast, after all. They were as fast as he was. This one had a scattergun too, so he would be shooting as soon as he caught up. It would not be long now either, as Scout could feel the heartbreaking panic of impending doom.

Suddenly, gunshots were chasing him. He peeked over his shoulder to see the scoutbot chasing him. He was deadest on catching the Scout. Everything that seemed human about him earlier had changed to a machine.

“I’m gonna head-butt ya! I’m gonna headbutt ya!” the scoutbot yelled at him, almost angrily.

A second peek revealed that somewhere beyond them, the heavybot and the demobot were still coming. How they had gotten past the obstacles, Scout did not know. They were not as fast as the scoutbot, but that minigun’s bullet sure would catch up to him quick if he did not think fast.

He darted down a side hallway without thinking about it. He listened with relief as bullets shot past down the hallway he had been in. He kept rushing until he stopped a dead end. He was right there at the wall, with the wall itself an inch from his nose. This was it, the deadliest end.

He could hear the minigun revving as he turned around. The scoutbot was reloading his scattergun as he came into view. The demobot was not far behind, making some drunken warcry.

“Hasta la bye bye, scoutbot!” the scoutbot stopped to aim at Scout.

He threw his hands up into the air. He had no alternative. There was no other way to show that he was unarmed. Besides, there was nothing more he could do to defend himself. He was defeated, he knew that. He had to accept that in one way or another, so he did as they always did when they were in the no quarter round.

“What in tarnation do you boys think you’re doing?” a Texan accent caused everything to go silent. The scoutbot’s head turned and the demobot’s head turned as well, the moment he was in view.

Scout took a relieved breath. It was temporary relief, but it was relief. He would live to breathe for at least another few minutes.

“There is scoutbot in here,” the heavybot responded, still out of Scout’s sight.

“The hell you trying to shoot him for?” the man demanded. This time, Scout was sure that it was a man, a real human being with a human voice.

“Hey! Hey! I’m in here! Hey!” he called out, hoping the man might take pity on him and show him mercy, “Please call them off!”

“You boys didn’t pay attention?” the man was asking as he came into Scout’s view in the hallway.

What was a short man with a balding head turned into an engiebot. One of those small bots, not the mecha engineers. It was strange, almost like a Spy disguise. One moment he seemed like a normal human, walking into view with skin and hair. The next moment, he was just another engiebot, with metal and jerking movements.

“You ain’t supposed to be shooting,” the engiebot walked towards Scout as he spoke to the scoutbot. He was pulling a needle out of his belt, like something a Medic might use on a person.

“Please! Please! Don’t hurt me!” he pleaded.

“It ain’t even armed? What the hell!” the scoutbot looked on in confusion.

The engiebot chuckled, turning to look back at the scoutbot, “You boys take to killing machines too seriously. These ain’t designed to be killing bots. Well, not this one anyways. This is an AI testing bot. Killing’s just a side effect.”

“What are you talking about?” Scout asked, shaking and desperate to get out of here alive.

The engiebot turned back to him, “Now hold still. This shouldn’t hurt too bad. Last ones complained about a pinch, but that was about it.”

“Please…I…I’m too young and handsome to die!” he pleaded, “I’m not doing anything! Honest! I won’t get in your way! Just let me go!”

“Hold still,” one hand came to grab his face and the other stuck the needle into the side of his had.

He let out a scream, mostly out of terror. He wanted to cry. He wanted to sob until he had nothing left to sob for. He wanted to feel numb and empty of all of this feeling, if only just to feel alive.

“There,” the engiebot stepped back to give him some space.

Scout opened his eyes slowly. Something had changed, but he was not sure how or what. As he looked on, something blinked in his perception, something that was not his eyelids. In that brief moment, the bots turned into humans. They looked like flesh, wearing real fabric clothing, and sounding like real people again.

“You just gotta uninstall it,” the Engineer said.

Scout looked down, realizing that something was off. He looked at his hands, both of them made of metal. He wiggled his fingers to find that there were no knuckles, just metallic joints. Even the slightest of movement, which should have produced no sound, was creating noise as the metal creaked. He was even shaking, but he was not sure if it was because he was two seconds away from shitting himself, or if it was just a bot thing.

“So uh…what did that do?” the Scout asked, looking on with his scattergun resting in his hand.

“Well, the primary sensory alterations that the software had no him have already shut down,” the Engineer explained.

“What?” the Demoman asked, with confusion.

“Meaning what?” the Scout agreed on the need to understand.

“Meaning that he saw the world in an altered way before,” the Engineer explained, “Now that part has been shut down and he sees things the way they are.”

“The way they are?” the scoutbot looked down at his hands.

“Now, we’ve got one hand delivered to us,” the Engineer said, with an eerie crooked smile, “No damage or anything. Just an easy uninstallation. Now, we can take him in for study and research.”

“Now wait a minute, if Mann Co made these things, then why do we have to study them?” the Scout asked.

“Too many questions lad,” the Demoman grumbled with frustration.

“They’re AI bots, Scout,” the Engineer motioned to the scoutbot. He had this look on his face like this was the most precious and important thing in the world. “They perceived the world as we do. They make alterations to themselves, especially the medicbots, they will do that. In their base programming, there is something that knows they are robots, but they don’t really _know_ they are robots. They see body parts, human organic stuff in place of metal parts. He’s seeing himself in a whole new perspective now. It’s something to marvel at when it comes to study. That’ll come after his programming finds that there is no backup for the standard scoutbot programs, leaving certain slots empty. His system will eventually shut down, which will make it easier to study him.”

“Study me? I don’t want to shut down! Don’t kill me!” the scoutbot pleaded. Bot or human, he did not want to die.

“Don’t worry fella, it won’t hurt,” the Engineer assured him.

“Can’t you just…shut it down now?” the Scout asked.

“No! Don’t shut me down!” the scoutbot pleaded.

“Well, sure,” the Engineer replied, “But from past experience, ones who get manually shut down tend to erase memories or corrupt data. It makes things a little harder to study. Not even sure they’ll ever start up if we wanted to retry those bots.”

“Would be easier if you just shut him down,” the Scout pointed to the scoutbot with his scattergun.

“Don’t shut me down!” the scoutbot pleaded.

He felt like there were tears in his eyes, as he pleaded for his life. There should have been tears in his eyes. The only problem was that he could not see any actual tears building up in his eyes.

“He’s harmless,” the Engineer stated, gesturing to the scoutbot, “We’ll just lock him up. In a few days, he’ll be shut down.”

The scoutbot looked on with confusion and despair. This was not right, and it was not fair. He did not want to die. They should not make him die.

“I don’t want to shut down!” he informed the Engineer stubbornly.

“What do we do with little scoutbot?” the bit Heavy Russian man asked, hefting his gun.

“Lock him up in one of those rooms,” the Engineer explained.

“What’s up with those rooms anyways?” the Scout asked, “Like, I get that this place is supposed to be for…testing and stuff. But those rooms give me the creeps. I mean, I’m not really that bothered by them. They’re just creepy, you know? Other people might be upset by them. They might cry like little babies or something.”

“Scout is little baby man,” the Heavy grumbled.

“Hey! I am _not_!” the Scout protested.

“Just get him locked up so he doesn’t go anywhere,” the Engineer grumbled, losing his cheery disposition, “I’ve got work to do! So, keep it down!”

“Alright, Engie,” the Demoman turned and straightened up, “You heard the man. Let’s get this pile of junk to a cell!”

“You’re not going to kill me though, right?” the scoutbot pleaded, “You won’t kill me, right?”

“We will if we have to,” the Scout warned, shaking his scattergun. He had a very sneaky grin on his face, like he wanted to put some bullets in the scoutbot’s face.

“I don’t want any trouble,” the scoutbot argued, “I just want to live. Just leave me alone. Okay? I won’t cause any trouble. I won’t do you any harm. Please?”

The three mercenaries laughed at him. They laughed so boisterously that the big one popped a button on his shirt. He looked at his shirt, bewildered at losing a button. The others did not even notice though. They were just laughing at the suggestion of letting the scoutbot go.

“Let’s just go,” the Scout rubbed a tear from his eye and pointed his scattergun at the scoutbot, “Nice and slow and nobody gets hurt.”

“Why do you say it like that?” the Demoman asked.

“Just a saying…like in the movies!” the Scout explained.

“Let’s get going,” the Demoman rolled his eye.

 

In the end, he did as he was told. He was quiet and careful about his movements. He let them lock him in one of those rooms that made a cell. It was not a bad place to be, if he was honest. There were no actual bars on it, not like a jail or something. It was designed like a bedroom, only it was nor furnished. It just had a chair and a bed with a mattress. There were no sheets on it though.

He sat down on the wooden chair, needing to take a long think on what was going on here. Everything was upside down. Nothing was quite right.

When he looked at his hands again, he could not help but feel a mixed wave of emotions. Frustration that he was not human. Anger that nobody had revealed this to him before. Something like frustration that he could not see the flesh he once saw and that he used to know his body as having flesh. Pain that he would never see his coworkers again. Perhaps it was a little less since they were not the best group of guys ever. Still, he might miss Spy.

When he thought about them he looked at the door. If he was a scoutbot, then they were bots too. Spy was a bot. Heavy was a bot. Engineer was a bot. They were all machines.

To some degree it made sense. He did not really have a lot to go off of, none of them were that social with him, but most of them were pretty mechanical in their social skills. Still, that did not mean that he was only a machine right?

He gripped at his shirt, or rather what he used to feel as his shirt. His body was just a metal husk. Why could he feel a shirt before? With that in mind, why could he feel at all?

Now that he thought about it, brushing his fingers against the wood of the armrest, he realized that he could feel a lot of things. Being a robot meant you didn’t have feelings. It meant you could not feel pain, anguish, and even touch. Yet, his fingertips could feel the difference between the metal and the wood.

He got up from his seat and walked to the door, banging on it as loud as he could. “Hey!” he called out, “Hey! Anybody out there! I got a question! I mean, I got a lot of questions, but this one is important!”

At first, there was no answer. So, he kept banging on the door. They could not ignore him. He would not let them ignore him. He was to be heard, no matter what.

Memories raced through his mind. When he thought about it though, he never had memories of any other life. He used to think he remembered a mom and brothers, but he did not. He did remember wanting things though. Like how he wanted to go on vacation and see guys shirtless on the beach.

He just wanted a vacation before, now he wanted life. He wanted a life. He wanted to live out life and actually experience it. He was not sure why he knew about the beach, but there was a beach out there somewhere. He was not sure why he knew he would like looking at the guys without their shirts on, but somewhere out there was a beach full of hot guys. He wanted to be there and not here.

“What? Hey. What?” the Scout suddenly opened the door.

His eyes snapped open and he looked on, wondering what he had been banging on the door about in the first place. He had become lost in his thought about the beach that he had not considered what he would do or say if somebody _did_ open the door. He had to come up with something, so he decided to just start talking.

“You got any water? I’m thirsty,” he quickly requested.

That was not entirely a lie. He did run an awful lot before getting in here, and that was taking its toll on him. The heat outside had not helped any either.

“What? No! You’re a robot! Just do…robot things,” the Scout said, with an irritated scoff.

“But I’m thirsty!” the scoutbot pleaded.

“No!” the Scout gestured dramatically in refusal, “I’m not an accomplice to whatever water would do.”

“I just need a drink!” the scoutbot pleaded.

“You’re just a bot,” the Scout told him, gesturing towards his chest, “You don’t drink water. You don’t need water.”

The scoutbot paused to think about this. It was true that he had never seen a scoutbot need water. He could not imagine any bot actually needing to drink for any reason. Yet, he and the others had always drank water, and for whatever reason he needed it now.

“I _want_ a drink of _water_ ,” he demanded sternly.

“Alright fine!” the Scout pulled a canteen from his belt and handed it over.

Scoutbot took it, feeling the full thing slosh around. It made him feel like he was dehydrated. He had run so much and had been so hot, he should have drank water sooner. It definitely was not healthy, as he should have packed some water to take with him.

“Thanks,” he said, as he unscrewed the lid.

He tilted it back and fresh delicious water splashed on his tongue. He let his eyes close as he guzzled down the cool refreshing beverage, letting it wet his throat. It felt good and it somehow felt human. It was strange to think about but liberating at the same time.

He realized too late when he finished off the canteen and handed it over. He wiped his face on his arm, hoping he had not wasted too much water from spilling. That was always ridiculous when one was thirsty.

“I hope this didn’t like mess up your wires or something,” the Scout commented as he took back the canteen, “What the hell man? You drank it all!”

“Sorry,” the scoutbot replied, “It was hot outside. I was so thirsty.”

“How is that even possible,” the Scout asked, tucking the canteen away.

“I dunno,” the scoutbot shrugged, “How is it possible for you to feel thirsty?”

“Um…because I gotta drink?” Scout replied, as if it were some obvious answer with its own satisfactory statement.

“Well, I gotta drink too!” the scoutbot responded.

“No you don’t, not like me,” the Scout argued, “I’m human.”

“Yea, well, I only just discovered that I’m a robot,” the scoutbot explained, “Doesn’t change the fact that I’m thirsty. I ran a lot in the heat, I kinda needed some more water.”

“But _you’re_ not human!” the Scout argued.

“Yea, but I still need it,” the scoutbot stood firm on his point, “I needed it when I was- when I thought I was human.” He caught himself up, stumbling over his words to remind himself that he was never human. “You…you don’t get what it’s like. Nothing’s changed for me. I’m still thirsty. I’m still tired. I still feel. I can feel with my hands! The only thing that has changed is that I’ve learned something new about myself.”

The Scout sighed, “Whatever man.” Without another word, he stepped outside and closed the door, leaving the scoutbot alone again.

He walked over to the bed and laid down. He was very tired. His belly was sloshing with water and now his eyes just wanted to close. His stomach would probably growl when he woke up, but that was a problem to deal with when he came to it.


	3. Scout and Scoutbot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scoutbot gets a visit from the Scout and the Engineer in the room he's staying in.

Scout woke as he thought he would. His stomach was growling for food though. The hunger was like the morning after getting wasted, forgetting to eat food, but forgetting to drink altogether.

He sat up and took a deep breath. He stretched his arms over his head and leaned either way, trying to stretch himself out like he always would. He sighed as he let his arms fall to his lap. He looked at those metallic fingers and frowned. Oh, he did not have muscles to stretch out.

That was okay though, because stretching still felt good. He did not need real muscles to like being human. He could keep to his own mind, in which he was still a normal person. He was himself, still the Scout, still who he was when he woke up last time.

“Ah, you’re still alive,” the door opened, admitting the Engineer and the Scout.

“Of course,” the scoutbot puffed up his chest, “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You would like me to just keel over and die!”

“Well, it’s not about what _I_ want,” the Engineer replied, “It’s more about what’s going to inevitably happen. It’s not something we can hurry along, so basically we are just waiting for you to shut down.”

“Just a ticking time bomb, ain’t he?” the Scout asked.

“I am _not_!” the scoutbot protested, boldly. He did not actually know what would happen to him. When he started thinking about it, he kind of felt afraid.

“He’s not really a bomb,” the Engineer replied, pulling up his goggles to look at the scoutbot. In fact, scoutbot was not sure why they were in here anyways. “It’ll be simple really,” he explained, “So far, we found it happens when they go into sleep mode. They don’t even know it happens.”

“Nothing happens!” scoutbot protested with frustration, “Nothing’s going to happen!”

“Not much you can do about it, boy,” the Engineer grabbed the scoutbot by his jaw.

He flinched and pulled back, yanking his head, “Leave me alone! Don’t touch me.”

The Engineer did not move further, letting his hand slowly move down, “No skin off my back. It’ll happen either way.”

“What’d you want again?” the Scout asked impatiently.

“Wanted to see if he was shut down yet,” the Engineer turned and headed to the door.

“What am I doing here?” the Scout asked.

“I need you to watch him for a bit,” he explained.

“Why?” the Scout scoffed.

“Because I need to know what’s going on with him, “I’ve got Spy monitoring several others in the base. I gotta keep an eye on the cameras to make sure nothing funky goes on. You know how Spy gets with sappers.” He sighed with frustration at that. “Just, keep an eye on him,” he pointed to the scoutbot, “Make sure he doesn’t overheat or anything. Make sure nobody causes him any damage.”

“What if it…fights me?” the Scout suggested.

The scoutbot scoffed and folded his arms over his chest. Like he would start a fight with a guy with a gun. Sure, he might on the battlefield. This wasn’t the battlefield though. It did not work like that. At least, he was sure that it did not work like that.

The Engineer chuckled, in a sly manner, “He ain’t gonna cause you no harm. You’d be surprised. They weren’t exactly designed to…be smart. This is a scoutbot, not a…medicbot or anything. It wasn’t designed to be smart.”

“Just be good at killing,” the Scout argued.

“Watch your mouth, smart mouth,” the Engineer warned, “It wasn’t designed for killing. It just took the hull of a robot that you know as a killer scoutbot.”

“These robots have been shooting other robots,” the Scout protested, “How do you know it won’t try to shoot me.”

“It ain’t armed!” the Engineer’s voice got a little higher pitch as he grew more irritated with the younger man’s questioning.

“Yea but you don’t know if it would take my gun,” the Scout gestured with his scattergun.

The Engineer growled and turned to the scoutbot, “You gonna try anything boy?”

“No,” the scoutbot sagged a little, feeling a little frustrated at his situation.

It was not like he could change anything if he wanted to. Trying to fight the Scout could probably end in death. There was no knowing the way out, and even if he got the gun and shot Scout, his next problem would be a bunch of mercenaries that were not hindered like bots were.

“Not like I could go anywhere or do anything,” he pouted.

“See? He’s not going to be any trouble,” the Engineer turned back to the Scout.

“Oh sure,” the Scout replied sarcastically, “We’ll see.”

“I just said!” the scoutbot protested, “I’m not gonna do anything! Like, I ain’t stupid or nothing!”

The Engineer chuckled at that, “We’ll see when we get your head off.”

“M-my head?” he felt a bit alarmed, feeling his neck at the mention of his head being removed. Even if he was a robot, that did not seem like something pleasant.

“I can knock the head off with a bat! Watch!” the Scout jeered.

“Not until after he shuts down!” the Engineer scolded, “None of these bots are to be meddled with until they shut down! Once we get past the stage of there being any power in their systems, we’ll be able to work with them.”

“Fine, fine,” the Scout rolled his eyes, “Just go do whatever you were doing. I’ll watch him…or something.”

“No somethings!” the Engineer barked, “You just watch him!”

“Alright! I got it!” the Scout put his hands up defensively.

The Engineer lumbered out with a slight limp. The scoutbot had not noticed that before. Maybe that was why the Engineer preferred to be away from the bots, because he could not defend himself the same as the others. Any kind of injury or handicap would result in lower chances of winning in a hand to hand fight, and shooting his leg just became an apparent necessity.

Scoutbot shook himself, as he found the room empty aside from himself and the Scout. It was quiet and immediately struck him as boring. He walked back over to the bed and laid down, too bored to care about the guy lingering nearby.

“So…this is all you do?” the Scout asked, lingering in the corner far off from the bed, “You just…lay around all day.”

“Not really,” the scoutbot replied, staring at the ceiling, “Usually go outside and do stuff. But…you know…” He sat up a little to look over at the Scout. “Can’t do anything fun, so I’m stuck here…being bored.”

“Yea? Well, that makes two of us,” the Scout said with a gruff tone.

“Whatever,” the scoutbot shut his eyes, at least he felt like he was shutting his eyes. He took a deep breath and counted back from ten, hoping to just dream this all away.

The Scout sighed, “I’m booooored!”

It seemed that the scoutbot was not going to get any sleep. He would have to deal with this other guy being annoying. He sat up on the bed and glared at him.

“What the heck is your problem?” he asked.

“I’m stuck here doing babysitting duty!” the Scout exclaimed, “I don’t got time for this!”

“Then leave! Fuck off!” the scoutbot spat, pointing at the door, “There’s the exit!”

“Shut up! Fuck you! I know I can’t leave!” the Scout responded in frustration.

“Well, what do _you_ want to do then?” the scoutbot asked.

“Go outside and play ball!” the Scout responded.

“Yea! Me too!” the scoutbot agreed, “It’s no fun being cramped inside. Outside’s the best place to stretch your legs an shit.”

“Did you just say…shit?” the Scout gave him a perplexed look.

“Yea? What you think you’re gonna do about it?” the scoutbot replied, challengingly.

“Oh…nothing…it’s just…I didn’t expect a scoutbot to be able to say those kinds of things,” the Scout explained, “What with certain people working with bots and all. You know…it kind of ruins the point of bots if they are cussing and swearing at one another.”

“The heck is the point of a bot who can’t say the word shit?” the scoutbot exclaimed, throwing up his arms.

“That’s what I was thinking!” the Scout replied excitedly, “But I thought, no. No, because certain people…wouldn’t agree with that. They’re too sensitive and shit. They don’t like their sensibilities being challenged. So everybody else has got to slow their speech down and be like…their hanging around children or something. Like, could you imagine having to deal with a bunch of babies all day? I couldn’t!”

“Me neither,” the scoutbot agreed, “Everyday, dealing with those other guy is a freaking hassle. They’re not even nice to me, you know. They like to push me around and act like I don’t know what I’m doing or saying! But I totally do! I know what’s coming out of my mouth! I know what I said! I mean it when I said it!”

“Exactly,” the Scout replied, seemingly bouncing on his heels, “It’s like they’re off on some other freaking planet. Um…guys? Can you like, come down to Earth? You bozos got some ‘splaining to do!”

Scoutbot laughed, feeling overwhelmed with joy. He was practically buzzing with excitement. It was weird that he could feel that. Had he always done that before though? He was not too sure.

The Scout smiled brightly, “You laugh too!”

“Yea, I can do lots of things,” the scoutbot pointed to him, “I can do…whatever you can, pally! I can do or say whatever I want! Whenever I want too! You wanna see? You wanna see? I’ll do anything. I’ll show ya!”

“You can’t do _everything_ I can do!” the Scout protested, “I’m human. I got like…a ton of leg on you! I’ve been alive for more than sixty years pal!”

“Sixty years?” the scoutbot was stunned to silence at that.

The Scout was more than sixty years old? That was beyond belief. That was not possible, given his own team was in their forties and fifties, looking much older than that. Meanwhile, this Scout did not look a day over twenty-five. It was an unbelievable bit of information to be confronted with.

“That can’t be right!” he protested, “You don’t look a day over twenty five!”

“Stop!” the Scout chuckled, in a faux bashful manner, “You’re embarrassing me!”

“How?” the scoutbot urged, eager to know the secret.

The Scout shrugged, “We go through respawn like…every day. It respawns us with the same bodies we had when we were scanned in. I guess it just goes to show that we are…my team is…immortal because of science.”

“Science is pretty underrated,” the scoutbot nodded.

“Yea, but overrated at school,” the Scout argued.

“I can agree there,” the scoutbot nodded his agreement, “All of those assignments. All of that nonsense gibberish and stuff! Don’t get me wrong, science is cool. And science does lots of cool things. I’ve seen Medic do a lot of cool stuff with science.” He decided not to correct himself upon remembering that the Medic was a medicbot. “But, being in class is so boring! And science doesn’t even apply to real shit! Really, when am I gonna apply some physics equation with a ton of multiples with long division to whether or not I can jump a train car?”

“That’s what I’ve been saying!” the Scout agreed, “Like, that’s not fucking science! You just jump!”

“Yea!” the scoutbot threw his hands up into the air with exasperation, “Thank you!”

“I mean, it’s not the simplest thing,” the Scout replied, “You gotta be super built for something like that. Look at this!”

He flexed his arm, showing off his muscles. The scoubot could not help but stare. Who in their right mind would not admire a man’s muscles when he was showing them off?

“And this!” he turned a bit, pulling up his shirt as he tightened his abdominals.

The scoutbot felt his face heat up as he thought about reaching out to touch. That was probably a little over the line though. He would just keep his hands to himself and admire them. He was kind of glad his mouth was not actually a normal human mouth, as his chops would probably be watering. He swallowed at the sensation growing more aware that he was getting a little too into this display that the Scout was giving him.

“And these legs?” the Scout patted his thighs, crouching slightly, “I can jump like…thirty feet in the air! How high can you jump?”

The scoutbot did a double take. Thirty feet seemed pretty high. He was not sure how high that was. Maybe it was the height of a train car though. If that was the case, he could totally go five feet higher.

“Thirty five feet!” he announced proudly.

“No way!” Scout scoffed.

“Yes way!” the scoutbot protested.

“You can’t do that! I’m certain you can’t!” the Scout protested, “Besides, aren’t you like…programmed to jump only as high as I can?”

He was stumped by that one. Programming was not something he knew anything about. Scoutbots were not something he knew anything about. The fact that he might be limited based on what an actual human Scout could do was confounding and disappointing.

“We should totally see if it’s true,” the Scout said in earnest.

“Uh…problem,” the scoutbot pointed to the ceiling, “We can’t exactly do anything indoors. We’re kinda limited here.”

“Oh…yea…yea…” the Scout stammered. His cheeks turned a bit red. “I knew that!” he said defensively, “Totally knew that!”

“Well, we’re limited,” the scoutbot shrugged, “So jumping is out.”

“Let’s see…what else is fun?” the Scout asked, rubbing his chin.

Scoutbot did not need much time to think on that one, “Oh that’s easy! Running around! Baseball! Shooting at stuff! Shooting at people! Shooting at other peoples’ stuff! Primarily that’s the kind of stuff that I shoot at.”

“Yea, that’s what I’m thinking,” the Scout nodded in agreement, “But…nah, we can’t do that. That’s stuff we gotta do outside. We can’t do none of that in here.”

The scoutbot sighed, “Man, this sucks!”

“Yea!” the Scout agreed, “Sitting in here is so boring!”

“Not that!” the scoutbot grew a bit frustrated. Not everything was about having fun. In fact, his mind had jumped subjects already.

“Huh?” the Scout did a double take, looking at him with surprise.

“Dude, I’m going to die,” the Scoutbot explained, “I just have to sit in here in this stupid room, with the stupid quiet, and wait to die. This isn’t just no fun- this sucks on ice!”

“Y-yea,” the Scout looked down at the floor, “I guess that does suck.”

Scoutbot hesitated. He wondered if the Scout really understood that. Perhaps he did not, because he had never died permanently before. That meant that he could not have felt what it was like to just stand around and wait for it.

“Like, maybe we should do something,” Scout suggested.

“Like what? There’s nothing to do!” the scoutbot exclaimed.

“I dunno,” the Scout shrugged.

“Well you have to be more specific than that,” scoutbot frowned at him, “That’s just lame to say.”

“Okay, let’s think,” the Scout rubbed his chin.

“Honestly, I can’t really think of anything,” the scoutbot replied, not even bothering to put in the effort. There was nothing he enjoyed doing indoors other than sleeping. He could get enough sleeping done when he was dead though.

“We could play…board games?” the Scout offered, with a shrug.

“Like what? What kind of board games?” the scoutbot asked, curiously.

“We got…I think we have Monopoly,” Scout suggested.

“Monopoly? That game sucks with two people,” scoutbot argued.

“Okay…um…” the Scout hummed as he tried to think of something else, “How about snakes and ladders?”

“That’s a baby game!” the scoutbot scoffed, “Boring!”

Scout shrugged, “Checkers?”

“That’s a stupid game,” scoutbot shook his head.

“Chess?” Scout asked.

“I hate chess,” both of them spoke in unison.

Scoutbot started laughing and the Scout joined him. It was funny that they both had similar opinions. Thinking back on it, it was not really that funny, but in the moment it felt like they were laughing to bond and relieve themselves.

Their laughter lasted longer than it should have. At some point, it no longer mattered what they were laughing about. It was just that neither of them wanted to be the first go to silent. When they finally did to quiet, scoutbot was rubbing his eyes at the itchy sensation of tears.

“Man…board games suck! Indoor games suck!” the scoutbot said, shaking his head.

“You said it! I wish we could go outside,” the Scout sighed.

“I…do too,” the scoutbot sagged against a wall, feeling frustrated.

They were quiet for a while, just standing there in bored misery. That was when scoutbot’s stomach decided to growl again. The reminder of hunger was not a welcome one.

“What the hell was that?” the Scout exclaimed, pointing at him.

“Uh, my stomach! Duh!” scoutbot spat, defensively.

“Sounded weird,” the Scout commented.

“Yea well, I’m hungry,” the scoutbot said irritably, “So there’s gonna be noise.”

“But like…bots don’t have a stomach,” the Scout said, looking at the abdomen that the scoutbot was rubbing.

He looked down at his own stomach, “Well, then I dunno where the food goes, but I need food. You uh…got anything?”

“Pretty sure bots don’t eat real food,” the Scout countered.

“Don’t tell me what I do and don’t eat!” the scoutbot stood up straighter, facing him squarely to make him back off.

“Kay fine,” the Scout shrugged and rolled his eyes, “I’ll go…find some oil or something.”

“Food! I want food!” the scoutbot protested, as he watched the Scout approach the door.

“Alright alright! I’ll be right back!” the Scout waved a hand at him, before disappearing behind the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's watching.


	4. Jumping Competition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scout and the scoutbot have a little friendly competition.

The scoutbot waited and waited for the Scout. It was a boring time with nothing to do but sit around. When the Scout finally returned, the scoutbot audibly sighed. Having somebody around provided some relief, if only for a few moments of attention.

“What did you bring?” he asked, eagerly. He was so hungry.

“Some of this stuff,” the guy toted a bottle of oil and placed it into scoutbot’s hands.

“Uh…this is oil,” the scoutbot noted aloud. He gave the Scout an irritated look, hoping to drive home how disgusting it was to expect him to drink it.

“Yea…you’re a machine,” Scout reasoned, “Machines need oil. Makes sense you would drink it.”

“Why would I drink oil?” the scoutbot argued, “I told you that I need food. Like, actual food. Not this garbage.”

“Just try it. Maybe before it looked like orange juice or something,” the Scout insisted.

The scoutbot looked at the bottle of black ooze in his hands. It looked so nasty just looking at the label. The thought of drinking oil just curled his toes and made him want to vomit.

“I literally cannot drink this,” the scoutbot tried to hand it back.

“Just try a sip or something,” the Scout insisted, “It could be like bonk. You never know.”

The scoutbot sighed in a loud huff. If his reality was nowhere near the true reality, then all he could do was trust the Scout. He would have to test the oil and see if what he said was true.

Shaking with disgust, he raised the bottle. He could not take his gaze off it as he removed the lid. The smell of the substance wafted into his face. Anytime he smelled it in the Engineer’s- or rather engiebot’s workshop, it had never bothered him. Somehow, thinking about drinking this stuff made him want to puke.

“Bottoms up?” the Scout suggested, in a questioning manner.

The scoutbot glanced at him and nodded. An uncontrollable shudder came over his entire body though, causing his hands to shake the bottle and slosh the oil. As it came to his lips, he closed his eyes and vowed to swallow quickly. Get it over with and don’t taste it.

This worked at first, letting him swallow the first sip with ease. Then the smell came back to his nose as he tried to breathe. The taste hit him. The texture made his insides turn and become a hellish nightmare. It started from a sudden queasiness that covered his whole being, and it turned into a sudden sensation that he had just drank poison of sorts.

His body reacted instinctively. The bottle fell from his hand, oil sloshing over the floor. He dropped to his hands and knees, coughing and sputtering black goop. He began hacking and gagging as he felt some of the stuff come up his throat. He never should have swallowed.

“Dude what the hell? What the hell’s going on? I thought you drank oil! Like…it should be like juice for you! Am I right? Look…I’ll get you something! Just…shit…don’t die!” the door announced the Scout fleeing the scene.

Well, that was just fine. Scoutbot did not need an audience to his suffering anyways. He was shaking and gagging and miserable. He did not need the Scout around to make him feel worse about it all.

It was better this way, as the hacking and gagging slowed, only to be replaced by a flow of tears and sobbing. How awful an experience. He did not like puking of all things, and the whole experience brought him tears. Not to mention the disgusting taste of oil in his mouth. The texture that was stuck in his throat. No doubt the poisonous elements of the stuff that was still in his belly.

He wished he had some water or something. He needed something to wash his mouth out. Maybe if he drank some water, he could force himself to puke and clear out any oil that was left. Not that he liked puking, but it was better than what it might do to him.

He ended up lying face down on the floor. He was not sure why, but he just could not bring himself up off of the ground after that. It felt like a night of heavy drinking. On the upside, he did not have any of the actual pains that usually come with such mornings after heavy drinking. On the downside, his mouth tasted like oil instead of alcohol or even vomit. The unfamiliarity of that taste was worse than the acidity of bile.

“Scout! What the hell!” the door burst open as the Engineer came storming in.

“I don’t know! I don’t know!” the Scout was exclaiming.

“Dammit!” the Engineer took the scoutbot’s arm and started dragging him over to the bed, “Get me some water.”

“Like…drinking water? Or…?” Scout asked, hesitantly.

“Just get me something!” the Engineer snapped at him.

“Right!” the footsteps announced that the Scout was leaving, leaving the scoutbot alone with the Engineer.

“Oh God…” the scoutbot groaned.

“You’re gonna be alright son,” the Engineer patted his chest, “Just hang in there.”

“It’s all gross,” the scoutbot moaned.

“I know, I know,” the Engineer patted him again, “Listen, it’s just your programming.”

“What?” he turned and lifted his head to look at the Engineer.

“The oil won’t do any harm to you. Just relax,” he insisted, “We’ll get you some water. Your programming is meant to purge anything that a human couldn’t consume. You’ll be okay though.”

“I…I will?” the scoutbot felt very confused. If he was not dying from it, then why was the Engineer panicking. On top of that, why did he just yell at the Scout?

“You’ll be okay,” the Engineer turned on a light and shined it in his eyes, “Ah good. Your receptors are reacting to light well enough. You should be cognitively fine.”

“I just threw up everything in my stomach,” scoutbot replied, with another moan.

“Yea that,” the Engineer sighed, putting the flashlight away, “Well, you were programmed with the ability to simulate stress. So, it is unlikely that you would go through that like a normal robot would anyways.”

“Am I shaking?” the scoutbot asked.

“A little, why?” the Engineer touched his arm.

“Good, I thought it was just me,” the scoutbot sighed with relief. If he was anything like the scoutbots he had seen, then he should feel like he was shaking all the time, but he did not.

“You’re gonna be okay, son,” the Engineer assured him.

The scoutbot laid there quietly. He felt like he was really waiting for death now. That or he was waiting to vomit again. Everything hurt, and he was still shaky.

The door finally open again, and a panting Scout came in. He sounded like he must have run all over looking for the water. Maybe in his panic, he had done just that.

“Okay, I grabbed some water,” the Scout huffed tiredly.

“Give it here, boy,” the Engineer snatched a bottle from him and brought it to the scoutbot’s face, before the scoutbot even thought to grab it from him.

“I grabbed like…some muffins? And stuff…also…I’m not sure…should I let the Medic know about this?” the Scout asked hesitantly.

“Medic ain’t gonna do nothing,” the Engineer growled.

“Well…maybe he knows what to do if somebody drinks oil?” the Scout suggested.

Scoutbot was guzzling the water. It was delicious, washed away some of the taste and made his stomach feel fuller. He had not realized that he had been so thirsty.

“The hell are muffins for?” the Engineer barked at him, almost angrily.

“He said he was hungry,” the Scout explained, “If he really eats food, then I brought them to give them to him.”

“He doesn’t need those,” the Engineer protested.

The scoutbot grabbed the bottle and sat up so he could stop guzzling it, “Give me!”

“Just drink the water and be happy with that,” the Engineer said to him.

“Look, I brought them all the way here,” the Scout procured the muffins, “Just let him have them.”

“No point in baked sweets boy,” the Engineer insisted, “He just needed the water.”

“Oh come on!” the scoutbot protested, “I’m so hungry!”

“You don’t need sweets,” the Engineer assured him.

“I’ll starve to death!” the scoutbot pleaded.

“Yea, but you’re already going to die,” the Scout shrugged, seemingly seeing the Engineer’s side of this.

“Not of starvation! Come on! Just let me have one! It’s not going to hurt anything!” the scoutbot groaned.

The Engineer sighed and shook his head, “Fine. Just give them to him. It won’t hurt anything anyways.”

“Oh thank God!” the scoutbot leaped forward to take the muffins from the Scout’s hands.

He hastily stuffed a muffin in his mouth. They were delicious blueberry muffins! He could not help but hum his delight at the relief that was the pastry on his tongue. At least he figured that he had a tongue, since he could still taste the muffin.

It was such a good muffin too. He lost count of how many muffins he stuffed into his mouth, before he finished them off. His stomach was immensely happy with the delicious goodness was filling it up.

“Thanks,” he gave the Scout a thumbs up.

“You got a little,” the Scout motioned to his own face with a thumb, to indicate that the scoutbot had crumbs on his face.

He hastily wiped away the crumbs with his forearm. Everything was quiet as the Engineer awkwardly left, saying nothing after having watched the scoutbot consume the muffins. It made him wonder if perhaps he should have offered him some. He knew some of the other mercenaries- or rather the mercbots liked being offered a muffin when there were muffins around.

“You sure like muffins,” the Scout commented.

“Yea well, don’t you?” the scoutbot asked.

“Yea, but I don’t devour them like a crazy person,” Scout replied.

“I was starving, man!” the scoutbot protested.

“You’re not starving,” the Scout argued.

“Not now anyways,” the scoutbot rolled his eyes.

“Man, you’re like…just like a normal Scout,” the Scout said, a bit irritably, “Reminds me of this guy I used to fight.”

“I _am_ a real Scout!” the scoutbot spat, feeling frustrated.

“Hardly!” the Scout spat, “You’re not human.”

The scoutbot scoffed, “So? Nobody said a Scout had to be human.”

“Uh yea!” Scout protested.

“Who?” the scoutbot demanded.

“I did!” the Scout pointed to himself with a thumb.

“You don’t count!” scoutbot spat, “Asshole!”

“Can’t beat the facts,” the Scout shrugged dismissively.

Scoutbot stepped up towards him and poked him in the chest, “Okay then. What do _you_ consider traits of being a Scout, besides being human. Not every human is a Scout, anyways.”

“You gotta jump high,” the Scout offered.

“I can jump high!” the scoutbot barked.

“Not higher than me!” Scout argued, with frustration.

“I totally could!” the scoutbot protested.

“No way man!” the Scout waved a dismissive hand, “I’m way better at jumping than you are!”

“How would you know? You haven’t seen me jump!” the scoutbot got up in his face, “You haven’t seen what I can do! Come on! I’m fucking amazing! You just haven’t seen it yet. If you saw what _I_ can do, you would have to stand back in awe!”

“Let’s do this!” the Scout poked him in the chest in return.

“What?” the scoutbot was a little taken aback, not quite following what they were going ot do.

“You and me!” Scout pointed from the scoutbot to himself, “A jumping contest! Outside! Right now!”

“Let’s do this!” the scoutbot mimicked back to him.

Scout turned and led the way out. The scoutbot hurried to keep in step with him. There was no way he was just going to follow this guy. He was better than him in every way. There was no way he would be held back by being a bot or whatever.

They stopped by a door, where Scout rushed inside, before they resumed to the outside. Scoutbot was surprised to see how everything lit up for Scout when he moved. Many of the lights were automated, but he did not remember them turning on when he came in here. They probably had a sense for what was human or something.

They stepped out into bright light. Both of them had to pause to adjust their vision to the vastly different intensity of light. They looked at each other, before they walked along the wall.

It was strange that he did not see this wall before. From a distance, scoutbot had just seen desert for miles and miles Before, he had thought this was just a little building in the middle of nowhere.

He followed the Scout away from the door and down the wall a ways. They paused where the Scout jumped up to mark the wall with his chalk. He looked at the chalk, then handed it to the scoutbot.

“You’re up!” the Scout cheered.

The scoutbot took the chalk without hesitation. He looked up at the mark and smirked. This would be way too easy. That might as well have been a baby jump.

He crouched and leaped up, striking the wall with the chalk, before he fell back down to his feet. He looked up in triumph. The mark was well above the Scout’s mark. He handed over the chalk with a triumphant smile.

“Your turn!” the scoutbot jeered, as the Scout took the chalk.

“Watch this!” the Scout took a running start and tried running up the wall until he marked just a little above the scoutbot’s mark.

Of course, he could jump a little higher than before. That had just been a starting point. That would not faze the scoutbot though. There was no need to fret about it when he just had to keep his eyes on the prize.

He took the chalk and backed up a bit. He looked up at his target, just above the line the Scout had marked. He had to get just above that and he would win! He charged forward and launched himself up the wall. He could already feel himself grinning from ear to ear as the marking went above the Scout’s highest mark.

“There!” the scoutbot put the chalk into the Scout’s hand, with a satisfied smile.

“Yea? Hah! I could jump like that in my sleep!” the Scout jeered.

Scoutbot gestured to the wall. It was a sort of “be my guest” kind of invitation. He was not afraid. He could beat this guy in his sleep! There was nobody who could best him at jumping! He would win this competition without breaking a sweat!

The Scout launched himself up like he had before, but this time he got inches higher. The scoutbot frowned as he tried to recall how he saw the Scout do that. Surely there had to have been a trick. That was a really high jump. Still, he was sure with an extra push to his ego, he could make it.

He backed up and made the charging steps. He launched himself in the air, using the wall to try and run a little farther upwards. His arm reached out and he nicked the wall. As he started coming down, he looked upon the mark to see that he had just gone over his previous marking, and had not gotten any higher than before.

“Heh,” the Scout folded his arms over his chest, “You wanna try that again?”

“Yes!” the scoutbot barked, defiantly.

He backed up and charged again. His eyes were set upon the target. His hand went as high as it could. He almost felt desperate this time, just to get that mark above his own mark. Instead, he ended up scraping the previous marking once again.

“Dammit!” he proclaimed as he fell to the ground. He lost his balance and hit his bottom. He did not care, scrambling to his feet to try again.

“Whoa man!” the Scout raised his hands.

The scoutbot was not listening. He charged up and threw himself into the air. He could do this, he knew that he could do this. There was nothing to stop him from achieving this. There was no obstacle too great for him in this scenario.

Still, he looked on with horror as the chalk scraped the same line it had before. He landed upon his feet and stared up at it. It was no higher than before, as if he was destined to never reach such a height.

This could not be happening to him. Whatever it was, it could not be happening. This was ridiculous. He needed to get to the bottom of it before the Scout got any ideas about being somehow better than him in any way.

“If you can’t do it, you can’t do it,” the Scout was saying.

“No, it’s this wall,” the scoutbot insisted. He moved down the wall to a fresh area. He eyeballed the height of the Scout’s highest jump. He could make it, he was sure. He just had to get above that marking.

When he launched himself again, he simply made another line on the same level as his previous jump. He could get no higher there, so he moved down a bit, hoping to find a better segment of the wall. Each time he tried to jump his very highest, and each time he failed. Each time, he only marked as high as his highest jump, which remained the same. No matter what he did, there was no change in the outcome. The line was all the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man it has been so long since I updated this one.  
> I have been dealing with technical difficulties, along with work business. Not to mention I've been stuck with Pocket Merc on the brain.


	5. Scout vs Scoutbot

“How!” he questioned himself, “How?!”

He leaped again, and again, and again. He leaped up the wall in so many areas that it was becoming a long jagged line of attempts to get higher. No matter the attempt, he could never reach higher than the line, not even a smidge higher.

Tired and panting, he stared up at the line, backing up to see what he had made. There were a few visible lines from when the Scout had jumped up, but he did not make many attempts after the scoutbot found he could not get higher. He just sort of watched, probably pitying the machine that could not do what he had set his mind to do.

He stared with undying disbelief. A shattering pain filled his chest and his throat tightened. It was not fair.

“Hey…uh…” the Scout started, interrupting his thoughts.

He did not want to even look at the Scout. He kept his eyes on the jagged line. His eyes were burning, so he rubbed them. He could not get higher than he already was going. It was not fair.

“Are you uh…are you okay? You seem like you’re…” Scout did not seem to have a full thought filled out.

The scoutbot did not respond, staring listlessly at the wall. He did not know how high the line was, but that was it. That was no his best, but it was his peak. That was all he could do. That was all he could try. No matter how hard he tried, he could never get better. Scout could improve, finding ways to jump a little higher than before, so why could the scoutbot not do the same? It was unfair.

“Hey uh…did you break something? You seem a bit…um…do robots get pale?” the Scout asked, rubbing his neck.

Scoutbot looked down at the sand beneath his legs. He could never improve his skills. Hell, he could not even beat one lousy Scout. He was no champion. He was no human. He was probably not even capable of real emotion. At the end of this all, what did it matter? It all came back to the reality that the Engineer would kill him somehow.

“Are you…are you crying?” the Scout asked, hesitantly approaching him.

“No!” the scoutbot quickly wiped an arm across his face. It hurt more to fight back against tears.

“Man, I didn’t think robots could cry,” Scout’s voice held a tone of pity and it made scoutbot angry.

He leaped to his feet and turned to face the Scout, “Why don’t you go play a pity party with somebody else!”

“Hey! Whoa! Calm down!” the Scout threw his hands up defensively.

“I don’t need your fucking pity!” the scoutbot declared, wiping tears from his face.

“Jeez! I’m just trying to help!” Scout exclaimed.

“Well don’t! I don’t need your help! Or your pity party!” scoutbot responded loudly.

“It’s not a pity party!” the Scout waved his hands in the air defensively, “Why you gotta be like that?”

“Fuck off man!” the scoutbot shouted.

“No! _You_ fuck off!” the Scout replied.

“No you!” the scoutbot spoke out of instinct.

“No you!” the Scout echoed.

“You!” scoutbot grew heated with anger.

“No! You fuck off!” the Scout raised his voice louder.

“I said it first!” scoutbot could raise his voice no louder than it already was.

“I said it louder!” the Scout screamed.

The scoutbot took a breath and tried to shout as loud as he could. The two of them were deafening each other. Neither of them could really out do the other. At least, not until the Scout got his second wind.

Suddenly, the door banged open. They both looked to see the Engineer looking around, “You two!” He pointed to them then to the door with his thumb. “Get your asses back inside!”

The Scout’s shoulders straightened as he sauntered inside. Of course, his pride had not been wounded. His feelings had not been tossed on that wall a hundred times.

Scoutbot paused to look at the line on the wall again, before he entered the door. The Engineer followed, slamming the door behind them. The scoutbot looked up from the floor to follow the Scout back the way they came.

“Bet you can’t catch me!” the Scout called over his shoulder.

“Scout! Don’t go running off!” the Engineer called after him.

It was too late because the scoutbot had already heard and accepted the challenge. He might not jump so high, but he could run fast!

He bounded after the Scout, keeping well at his tail so that he could not escape him. They weaved around a variety of hallways, then ran up a set of stairs. Scout could have been leading him anywhere. At one point, he became convinced that Scout had _no_ idea where they were going.

They were running along a stretch of hallway when he caught his second wind. Yes! This was it! This was his time to shine. He pressed forward and leaped for the man’s arm.

“Hah!” he barked out, as he yanked the Scout off balance and pulled himself to a halt.

He had not really planned it out. He was just supposed to make the Scout stop and see that he caught him. There was no finish line, so this was the best he could think of. However, the motion had done two things. When the scoutbot stopped, he leaned back to try and regain his balance. The other was that the Scout, thrown completely off balance, fell against him.

Then a third thing happened. The scoutbot caught Scout to keep him from falling to the ground. His arms wrapped around him in a gentle hug that helped the Scout to regain his feet.

When Scout looked him in the eye, he felt a strange jitter in his chest. It was a strange feeling, and only happened when they made eye contact. Did he make eye contact before or was this the first time he had looked at the Scout. Those intense eyes were not purely blue like he thought. They were almost aquamarine. Flecks of green filled those stony irises too.

“Whoa! You caught me!” the Scout laughed it off, straightening himself up and peeling out of the scoutbot’s arms.

A pang of regret hit the scoutbot. He could only wonder why he felt that. He tried ot shake it all off as he watched the Scout brush himself off and get straightened.

“Okay, you win at racing,” the Scout replied, “Wanna win at sneaking?”

“Sneaking? Isn’t that a Spy thing?” scoutbot asked.

Scout chuckled, “Yea but…let’s say we go back outside.”

“Didn’t the Engineer just yell at us for that?” the scoutbot asked.

“What’s _he_ gonna do about it?” the Scout scoffed.

“Fair point,” the scoutbot shrugged, “So what then? We’re just going to sneak back outside?”

“Let’s play ball!” the Scout said excitedly, “Like, nobody else here even knows how the game works! _They’re_ the uncultured idiots!”

The scoutbot laughed at that, “Yea! Can’t even swing a bat, let alone know the rules!”

“Bunch of idiots is what they are!” the Scout laughed.

“Yea!” the scoutbot agreed, “Wanna say _I’m_ uncultured for not wanting to learn French? Um, you’re uncultured for not knowing the very basic principle of the most important aspect of American culture!”

“Baseball!” the two of them shouted in unison.

“You up for it?” the Scout asked excitedly.

“Hell yea! Let’s do this!” the scoutbot replied.

“Come on! I’ll get my bat and my ball!” the Scout said excitedly.

“Yea! Let’s do it!” the scoutbot bounced on the balls of his feet excitedly.

“Follow me and stay low,” Scout insisted.

The scoutbot nodded eagerly. He followed him, as quietly as he could. They creeped down a hallway and into a room. Scout dug around for his baseball things, tossing a glove to the scoutbot.

“Hold that for me, will ya?” Scout asked.

The scoutbot nodded enthusiastically. He waited patiently as the Scout pulled out his bat and then dug for his ball.

“We can play with this one,” Scout commented, tossing the ball up and catching it. He turned and led the way out of the room. They moved as quietly as mice until they finally escaped out a door into the bright sunlight.

“There’s no diamond,” scoutbot commented, as he looked around at the barren sand.

“Yea, well we can make our own,” Scout started cutting into the sand with his foot, creating bases and lines.

Scoutbot caught on quickly, making lines to mirror the ones that the Scout was making. He carefully eyeballed the lines, trying to get them to being as close to how the Scout did them as possible. They did not need a crooked field, after all.

“Alright,” the Scout examined their work, with an appreciative nod, “It’s a bit odd running on sand, but I think we can make do.”

The Scoutbot nodded in agreement, “Am I pitching first?”

“Sure,” the Scout tossed him the ball, which he caught with the glove. He was glad the glove fit him properly.

“Let’s do this!” scoutbot smiled as he approached the pitcher’s mound, which was just a bunch of sand kicked up to make it obvious.

He watched the Scout thoughtfully. The man tapped the bat to his shoe and then gave it a couple of swings. He shifted his feet, slowly getting down into his stance. There was something so interesting about that look to scoutbot.

“Batter up!” he called as he started the pitch.

The ball sped fast, but the bat swung faster. The ball went soaring over his head, but he was not hesitant. He was already running after it, eager to catch it before it landed. Of course that in itself was an impossibility, but that did not mean he was not going to try. After all, he beat the Scout by catching him in the hallway. That was a good enough win to show him that he was fast.

The ball bounced and he snatched it up. It had gone so far anyways that he knew that Scout was already running to the home plate. He made his way back to the pitcher’s mound to throw again.

Sometimes Scout hit it far. Sometimes he missed the ball. Once Scout ran around three times, they switched. Scoutbot was a pro at hitting too. He sent the ball running so far that the Scout came back a huffing tired mess with the ball. They must have been playing for over an hour before the cool air started settling in with the darker shadows. Engineer came outside, marching towards them like they knew what they had done.

“You two. Your asses. Back inside,” the Engineer pointed to the door.

Neither of them said anything. They just sort of smiled and giggled with each other, as they grabbed the baseball equipment and headed inside. Scout started chattering about how much fun they had had. He recounted their plays as they headed to his room. Then he recounted all the really awesome parts as they settled into the room to just chat. Scoutbot found himself on a cushion on the floor while Scout threw himself over the edge of his bed.

They must have been in there like that for another few hours. They just talked and talked. Scoutbot mostly listened, but he was still a part of the conversation. His favorite part was when they divulged into other things.

Scout brought up ice cream, but assumed that scoutbot knew nothing about ice cream. That was when he had to remind Scout that he in fact could eat food. They both loved ice cream, all kinds of ice cream, and both of them craved it right now. Both of them agreed that hamburgers were the best, but nothing beat a mother’s home cooking. They both liked snacks and energy drinks too, especially bonk. Both of them enjoyed it, and when offered the scoutbot gladly accepted a can of bonk.

 

Their conversation was interrupted by a gentle knock at the door. Scout hesitated before he called out, “Who is it?”

“Scout, it’s me,” the Engineer called to him, “I know that scoutbot is in there with you.”

“It’s open!” Scout shouted.

The Engineer opened the door hesitantly and peered inside. He quickly assessed that both the Scout and the scoutbot were here and safe. He paused before speaking to Scout, “I’ll be taking him off of your hands now.”

“Uh wait- What?” Scout sat up on the edge of his bed, blinking at the Engineer, “No, you don’t gotta do that.”

“You’ll be going to sleep,” the Engineer replied, “I took a nap earlier.”

“What? I thought you said you gotta watch what Spy ‘n them are doing!” Scout exclaimed.

“I did,” Engineer replied, “Then they got back. You two were dicking around outside, so I took a nap.”

“That long ago?” Scout scoffed.

“Yes, now I’ll take him off your hands so you can get a night’s sleep,” Engineer nodded.

“Ah, you don’t have to worry about him,” Scout insisted, “He’s fine. I’ve been watching him. It’s totally under control.”

The Engineer gave him a worried frown, “Well, you’re going to be going to sleep. I’ll let you sleep and take him to the monitoring room.”

“He’s fine with me, Engie,” the Scout protested.

“Come on, scoutbot,” the Engineer gestured to him, “I’ll take you to your own room, where you can lay down and rest in your own bed.”

That sounded like a nice change though. The scoutbot certainly was tired. He at least wanted to lay down on something comfortable.

“That sounds okay,” scoutbot said, as he got to his feet.

“Um,” the Scout spoke up hesitantly, “I can still help. You know?”

“Sure Scout,” the Engineer smiled and gestured for Scout not to get up, “I’m just going to take him to his own room. Then you can both get a good night’s rest.”

“R-right,” Scout stammered.

“Good night,” the scoutbot waved on his way out.

“Good night,” the Scout waved halfheartedly to him.

The scoutbot was quiet as he followed the Engineer. He figured it was best to stay on the Engineer’s good side anyways. Being compliant would be best. Then he could see Scout again in the morning.


	6. Scoutbot vs Engineer

“You and Scout seemed to be getting along back there,” the Engineer tried to fill the silence as they walked along the hallway.

“Yea well…we sorta have things in common,” the scoutbot replied, feeling a bit awkward at the attempt to make small talk.

“You two wandered outside while I wasn’t looking though,” the man went on, “Went back out when I told you to stay inside.”

“It’s not like there’s anything dangerous out there! Come on!” the scoutbot rolled his eyes.

“It ain’t about danger,” the Engineer said, as he started up a set of stairs. He was so slow though, it was driving the scoutbot insane.

“What’s it about then?” the scoutbot asked, feeling irritable as he waited for the man to get his ass up the stairs. He was right behind him, taking one step at a time, waiting impatiently for the short stout man to move out of the way.

“It’s about you running off,” the Engineer turned to scorn him.

He rolled his eyes, “Yea. Where the heck am I gonna run to? This place is freaking surrounded!”

The Engineer finally made the last steps and headed down another hallway. “You could have run off and told the other bots what was going on.”

“Why would they believe me?” the scoutbot scoffed, “Look at this!” He gestured to himself. “And this?” he gestured to his face, “Look at all of this! I’m a freaking bot! Why would they give me the time of day to even explain myself before they killed me?”

The Engineer rolled his eyes dramatically so that the scoutbot saw it, “Boy, that don’t make a lick of sense. First off, you are all bots. They still got the programming that you’re human and humans are bots. You were never human, you just thought you were.”

“Wait, they ain’t seeing that they are robots yet?” scoutbot exclaimed, a little excitedly, “That means you haven’t gotten to them yet!”

“I didn’t say that!” the Engineer exclaimed, his face blooming with red.

Scoutbot was smiling from ear to ear, “Oh my freaking stupid crap! You haven’t even gotten those guys!” He started laughing. He did not know why, he just felt gleeful about it.

“Look, that ain’t none of your concern,” the Engineer gestured at him with a hand, “So just keep your nose out of it.”

“You totally aren’t gonna win,” the scoutbot said, smiling with delight. He might not have liked those guys, but if they somehow beat these guys, then maybe he could count that as a win for the team, which included him.

“There ain’t nothing to win!” the Engineer barked.

“Uh, you’re fighting with robots,” the scoutbot teased, “You’re trying to shut them down. But you can’t, can you? You’re having a whole lot of trouble!”

“Now, that is not what I said! I didn’t say any of that!” the Engineer turned to face him angrily. He was gesturing with his hands.

“But you totally inferred it!” the scoutbot exclaimed, “They’re winning the match!”

“There is _no_ match!” the Engineer argued angrily.

“You’re losing! And it’s frustrating you! No wonder you guys haven’t finished! You’re a bunch of losers!” the scoutbot laughed joyfully.

“Shut your trap!” the Engineer procured a gun, pointing it at the scoutbot’s face. He quickly stopped talking, not wanting to get a face full of shrapnel. “Everything is under control. This process takes a while. It is necessary to prevent damage to the bots. You idiots are too fragile to do anything with.”

“Say that again to my face!” the scoutbot puffed up his chest. Who did this guy think he was talking to? “I could beat you to a pulp if I wanted to!” He was not about to back down to this short guy!

“You’re as fragile as gold,” the Engineer shook the gun in his face, reminding him of the threat, “I don’t need a gun to threaten you boy. But I would sure like to pelt your hide.”

The scoutbot felt intimidated by the threat, seeing the gun at his face. All the guy would have to do is pull the trigger. Still, a fire in his gut told him not to back down. There was no sense in backing down from this fight, in his mind.

“You don’t scare me!” the scoutbot retorted. He poked the man in the chest to nail in his point. “You’re just a little guy who can’t handle a fight without a freaking gun! Why don’t you put the gun away and take me in a real fight!”

The Engineer started chuckling and lowered his weapon, “It ain’t worth it.” He turned and started into a room.

The scoutbot hesitated. This guy was a shithead. He thought he could just treat him like that? He thought he could just walk all over him like that?

“Scoutbot! Get in here!” the Engineer shouted.

The scoutbot glanced around, considering his options. What if he just walked away? Well, then there was a whole team of mercenaries with guns just waiting to kill him. As big of an asshole as he was, the Engineer was probably the second person he was able to trust right now.

He stepped into the room, the little bedroom they had put him in before. The Engineer gestured for him by the bed. When the scoutbot approached, the Engineer grabbed his wrist. He was not sure what he was doing until it was too late.

He looked at the handcuffs in disbelief. Why the hell was he handcuffed to the bed?! This was absurd! How the hell was he going to move around?

“Now, you sit tight while I get some work done,” the Engineer adjusted his overall straps.

The scoutbot made a disgusted noise, “Oh come on! You gotta be kidding me!”

“You’re not leaving this room, you hear?” the Engineer asked, “I’ll be able to keep an eye on you this way.” He pointed up to a camera in a corner, which was pointed at the bed. From that perspective, it did not seem able to pick up anything that was directly beneath it, given it did not move.

“Are you kidding me? What am I supposed to do now?” the scoutbot whined. He put as much annoying whine into his throat as he knew would piss the man off.

“Just sit your butt on that bed and stay put, you hear?” the Engineer barked at him, pointing to the bed.

The scoutbot sat down with a begrudging frown, “Doesn’t mean I’ll like it.”

“Good!” the Engineer sneered, “You could stand a bit of misery for a bit.”

“This is not fair!” the scoutbot whined.

“Sounds like a problem for you,” the Engineer was smirking in self-satisfaction as he headed to the door, “You stay put and stay the hell out of trouble!”

“The hell do you mean? Get back here!” the scoutbot called, “I’m not done with you! Come here! I’ll fight you!” He started yanking at the cuff holding him, trying to escape the links.

“Don’t even bother boy,” the Engineer turned to shut the door, “Have yourself a good sleep. It’ll be your last one.” With that the door shut and left the scoutbot in the dim lighting of the small bedroom.

 

He was not sure how long he was there in his little prison. The dark left him with no shadows to see how far the sun had moved. No clocks had been placed here, maybe because the mechanisms could be used for something. Scoutbot was not sure what, but he was sure a smarter person could figure it out, or a smarter bot could do it.

His butt was seated on the floor, cooling off on the concrete beneath him that made him feel even wearier than before. Mostly because it made his butt sore, but he just did not want to sit on the bed. He wanted nothing to do with giving satisfaction to that Engineer.

To this end, he remained seated. His arm was wrenched upwards though, unable to come down to his side. His wrist felt strained and sore from the cuff holding him. It left him with something to lean his head against, until the strain of that began to hurt his arm too.

The exhausting sensation that this was all just a very long dream made him sleepy. He felt his eyes wanting to shut, even as he tried to fight with the reality. This was not a dream, and he did not have to accept that it was unacceptable.

He did not even know what he meant by that. At this point, he was caught between giving up and falling into exhaustion or the ongoing battle of nonsense that seemed to be his wits trying to keep out of the tar pit that was encompassing his mind. It made him feel physically strained just thinking about it.

To what end he was fighting, he did not even know anymore. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that he had little to nothing left to live for. His memory held nothing dear for him, just the vagueness that there _was_ a family once. Nothing solidified that he even had a family or where he would find that family. Would they even care about him though? Him, a scoutbot, a creepy metal guy who probably was built to look like some other guy? Would they care about him and his wellbeing?

Nobody seemed to care up to this point. Even other bots tended to diss him. He remembered them as people though, people who saw him as annoying, a waste of space, and a hazard. They would boss him around, tell him to get a haircut or make fun of him. Before all of this robot stuff it was easy enough to cope with. Before finding out he was made of metal and wires, he had the dream of going to the beach for a vacate. He would enjoy some sweet asses, try some martinis and other alcoholic shit, and yes of course he was going to openly stare at guys with their shirts off.

Who was he hiding _that_ from anymore? He liked guys. He knew that for a very long time, he just didn’t want to explain it to anybody. Now, seeing as he was a robot, that must have been put into his programming. That had to be something that even the Engineer knew about him, which was an embarrassing thought.

What if the Engineer already knew that the Scout looked hot to the scoutbot? Maybe he was aware that the two got along well because the scoutbot could fall in love with boys that way. It made getting along easier in some ways.

Not like he was actually playing baseball thinking he was in love with the guy. It was nothing like that! He was totally into the friendship aspect and playing the game. The game was fun too. Scout was definitely a good player. By all accounts, he was also not a sore loser, a champion in his attitude. Any kid could look up to a guy like that, and anybody could fall in love with that too.

Who was he kidding though? Being a robot meant everything he ever dreamed of or wanted was smashed in his face. Everything and anything he could have achieved in the past was unreachable. He could not enjoy guys getting tans on the beach with a martini in hand. He could not go home to a family and hug a mother he cannot really remember. He certainly was not able to reach past the line he had made on the wall.

His head dropped, sinking his chin to his chest. He closed his eyes, feeling a wave of despair washing over him. This was reality now. He was nothing more than a robot without feelings or dreams or even memories of love. There was nothing he could want or wish for that he could have. There was no life he could live that would feel good.

The door clicked before it swung open. In his surprise, his head snapped up. He looked over to see the tired looking Scout rubbing his eye. A tank top that stopped just at the hem of sports shorts covered his chest, but left the arms open for viewing. His tired eyes opened as he stepped inside, with bare feet padding across the ground. He let the door swing shut behind him, staring at the scoutbot for a moment.

“You look like shit man,” scoutbot decided to be the first to make a comment, breaking the silent.

“Me?” the Scout strolled closer on tired toes, “Engie’s got you locked up with freaking handcuffs.” He suppressed a yawn.

He turned his head to look up at his wrist and shrugged, “Guess I’m stuck here. I don’t think he liked me going outside.”

“Seems so,” the Scout took a seat on the couch near him. He seemed so relaxed and at ease. How could he be so cool with everything? “Are you going to just sit on the floor all night?”

The scoutbot flinched and felt his face heat up. Man, he had been avoiding getting onto the bed, but now he could not remember why. It felt so silly, so he awkwardly got to his feet, brushed off his legs and bum and sat down next to Scout. He seemed to sink into the bed more than Scout did. He worried that this might become a bit awkward.

“Think that guy’s got like…an attitude problem or something,” the scoutbot said to fill in the space.

“Nah…he’s just…got this love hate relationship thing with machines,” the Scout explained, “Usually he loves machines. Like…almost obsessively so. I think I caught him hugging a sentry once. But then there’s like…sappers…and the enemy teams always have sentries too. I guess there’s that.”

“That’s right, huh?” the scoutbot sighed.

“Think the dude’s kinda…too judgmental though, you know?” the Scout offered.

The scoutbot offered him a smile. What a cool guy. Scout spent so much time with him. He played ball with him. He did not even make fun of him when he could not jump over the line on the wall. The guy was cool.

“ _I_ think you’re cool,” the Scout said, taking him by surprise, “I think Engie’s got shit stuck in his head. Like programming and stuff. If he’s so freaking smart, then why can’t he see when something’s got its own likes and stuff?”

The scoutbot felt like his heart was going to beat right out of its cage. He stared at the side of the Scout’s face with a feeling of awe. This was so much more than all the stuff he ever felt before. No beach babes or margaritas could beat this feeling. The scoutbot could just stare at his face all night.

“I uh…I had a nightmare and I can’t get to sleep without company,” Scout finally explained, “Spy and I were sharing a room, but he’s off doing…other things. Mind if I sleep in here.”

“O-of course!” the scoutbot stammered, “Of course not! I mean, of course you may!”

Despite the awkwardness, Scout smiled. The awkwardness only increased as the two of them tried to figure out where they were going to be. Scoutbot decided to be closer to the wall, that way Scout could get up and off the bed easier if he had to. You never know when there’s danger.

When they finally laid down together, it felt nice. Scout’s head was laid over the arm that was chained to the bed. His shoulder was pushed against his side, forcing him to feel so much warmer than he already was.

After a while, Scout began to talk, “I want to sleep, but I kind of don’t. You know what I mean? I just…don’t want this to end.”

Word vomit erupted from the scoutbot’s mouth in response, “Engineer said this would be the last time I ever slept.”

“Oh,” the Scout hesitated, sounding mournful in a sense, “Right. You’re supposed to shut down in your sleep.”

“Y-yea,” the realization broke the scoutbot’s heart. Here he was, with the coolest guy ever lying in bed next to him, and he was going to die soon.

“That doesn’t happen yet,” Scout said, with a tone full of hope, “Not until you fall asleep right? So we’ve got…however long it takes you to fall asleep.”

“I guess so,” the scoutbot replied, uneasily. He was not that sure how it worked.

“I guess…I could…keep you up awhile?” Scout turned on his side to face him.

Scout could not feel his heart beating. It started to hurt as he stared back at the man. Everything in him wanted to wrap the free arm around him and pull him into some sort of romantic kiss he had seen in the movies.

“You ever…you ever think about Boston?” Scout asked.

“N-no,” the scoutbot wished he could, “N-not really.”

“Why not?” Scout asked, “It’s a pretty cool place, ain’t it?”

“Yea, I mean…” the scoutbot forced himself to look at the ceiling and away from Scout, “I wish I remembered it. The more I try to think about it, the harder it is to remember. It’s like somebody took my memories away, and all I have are these faded bits and pieces to live with.”

“Oh…” Scout replied in a thoughtful tone, “I guess that must make it easier. You probably don’t get homesick so much, huh?”

“No way!” the scoutbot turned to him, feeling a little agitated at Scout’s response, “It’s much worse! It’s like…there was a home, and I can’t remember it. Somebody stole my memories from me! I don’t get to think about…what childhood was like. I can’t remember if I had a family. I mean, I get it… I didn’t have a past. But there’s…there’s this feeling. You know? Like, there’s something there. A fuzzy kind of vision…a ma and…brothers. Maybe I had a pet too. I can’t think about them and miss them and be sick for home. I can’t even feel displaced because I don’t remember where the hell home is!”

Scout was quiet for a while, they both were. They could not seem to formulate words anymore. Maybe they need this, a few moments of peaceful quiet to contemplate things. The scoutbot was not sure he did, because it was making him feel more awkward.

He became more aware of the head against his arm when it shifted to look at him again, “I’m sorry.”

He looked at the Scout with confusion, “I…what?”

“I’m…sorry,” the Scout offered, “I wish…I wish I could help. Things like that…that’s gotta be rough.”

“Don’t feel sorry for me!” the scoutbot grew agitated. He did not need pity! He did not need this guy looking down on him like that!

“No, I mean…I’m really sorry,” Scout insisted, “I never thought what it must be like for you, living like this. I complain about missing my ma and home… Here I am talking about Boston and you can’t even remember Boston.”

“No, I can’t,” he grit his teeth, trying to bear through whatever this was.

“I’m sorry you can’t remember Boston,” the Scout said.

There were a few silent moments of just staring. Their eyes just seemed to be fixated on each other. Scoutbot could not turn away, both fixated on the man’s vibrant eyes and angry with him.

“I want to show you Boston,” Scout said.

He did not feel the urge to be mad anymore. He just really wanted to kiss that cute face. Damn, why was he so cute? Why was he being so sweet to him? He was so cool and scoutbot just felt so worthless.

“Yea?” he managed to say.

Scout nodded, “Let’s go together, huh? What do you say?”

“How would we go together?” the scoutbot asked, with concern. He glanced up at his wrist, with the cuff on it. There was no way they were even going to get outside and meander or play baseball.

“We’ll…figure something out,” Scout insisted with a cute crooked smile, “Maybe we’ll just leave this place tomorrow! Just…you and me.”

“That would be nice,” the scoutbot admitted. He really wanted that.

“So, it’s set then,” Scout shifted in his place.

“What?” the scoutbot felt like he had missed something.

“Stay with me,” Scout reached out and took Scout’s free hand, “And tomorrow, you and me, we’ll get out of here and just…go to Boston. I’ll show you around. You never have to worry about Engie or them again.”

Scoutbot could not help but smile, “That would be nice.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters should be more frequent. I'm trying to figure out how long I want this one to be.


	7. Don't Die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scout's perspective

Scout did his best to keep the scoutbot awake. He spent hours of sleepless time just talking about nonsense. It felt so relaxing just to talk to him.

They had this sort of distance between them. The scoutbot did not remember Boston or family or anything. Not that he really ever had one. Surely, he was supposed to remember some sort of family though. It was supposed to be part of the simulation right? If you are a person, then you remember being a child and having some sort of family.

He did not mind this though. The hours spent talking to scoutbot were the best hours he had spent in decades. This was the closest he had ever been to anybody ever.

It was weird to think that way. No human could connect with him lately. No girls really got deep into his soul. None of the men he worked with even touched upon his interests.

All it took was a little baseball and some memories of little league. Man was that a tiring game. Not that the physical work of playing with the scoutbot was tiring. That was rather easy. He had spent the entire time giving the guy the wins, he might as well call himself lazy.

It was not like he did it without reason either. He was all fired up for competition when they went outside. It was when the line started forming that things started to get too personal.

He remembered little league and his brother Jerry. Him and Jerry were not too far apart in age, but Jerry was slower than the older kids, so he got stuck with his littler brother. He remembered how poor Jerry tried and tried and no matter how hard he worked, he could not even live up to the standards of the kids younger than him. No matter how often he practiced, his pitch got no faster or straighter. No matter how hard he tried, he could not hit the ball straight on. The most that little brother could do was to bribe the pitcher on the enemy team to take one and let the slower kid take a punt to the bat.

Poor Jerry had a short lived victory. Poor Jerry had a short lived life. Scout remembered those days of little league well, where parents said he should be happy to be playing baseball, when Jerry just wanted to be somewhere else and get out of the humility. When the other boys sized him up to his older peers, rather than acknowledging that he was a human being.

Jerry’s life ended when they were still young. Their mom was tired of taking care of so many boys. He remembered how relieved she was when each of their older brothers finally left. She had made it a ceremonious tradition to make sure they saw themselves out shortly after their eighteenth birthday.

Scout thought his mother knew better. Jerry was not like the other boys. Jerry was not stupid, but he was not up to the task of being an eighteen year old adult outside of his mother’s home. She would hear nothing of him staying home with Scout just another year. She gave him an extra two months and that was it.

Jerry had changed in those two months. The dread must have been crawling up his spine. Every day, Scout begrudged having to be the one to cheer on Jerry.

Telling that to the scoutbot had made him want to cry. He had to bite back those tears, trying to fight it back. No need to get emotional, they were just memories of times long gone.

Still, he reminisced on how he had felt in those last two months, wanting to be rid of the emotional stress Jerry had caused him. He wanted to be able to start on his own way, be able to take care of his own mental and emotional stability. After all, his eighteenth birthday was not far behind, and that meant he would have to get a job to move out.

It never really struck him when Jerry was found in his room. It had not hit him that this was all his fault. He just wanted to be angry and scream at Jerry. How could he do this? How could he abandon everybody in their own home? Was that his plan all along? Give up after eighteen years?

It had taken him a long time to get over being angry. He told the scoutbot about how he spent months being angry, before guilt and grief struck him like a hurricane. It swept him off of his feet, and by the time his eighteenth birthday arrived he was unable to hold his own mentally.

He failed classes. He could not focus. He could not finish anything. He was floundering around in baseball. Nobody wanted him around because he was a drain on their emotions.

Nobody wanted to hear Scout talk. Nobody wanted to hear about his grief of his brother. That just made the tidal wave of pain and anguish wash up with a new set of anger. He hated the world. Such a loathing that he could not resist the urge to pummel Barry Bourgeoise’s face with a baseball bat. All he had said was that jello sucked, but all Scout could remember in that moment were the times Barry had told Jerry to his face that _he_ sucked at everything.

It was not just Barry either. He remembered being in that moment and imagining other people were having their heads beat in. Mom’s reluctance to understand, and her failings as a mother to protect Jerry by finding him a safer space to spend his childhood. His older brothers for just leaving him and Jerry behind without much more than postcards with news about their new girls and their new families. Even Jerry’s face appeared so he could vent with his bat about what a fucking twat he was for leaving him behind.

When he stopped, the face was unrecognizable. He reminisced on how he imagined that this was his own face. This hideous mess of blood and gore from a battered skull was his own visage.

Why not? He had been a terrible brother. In the last two months of his life, Jerry had needed him most. He was being pressured again, into a whole new set of stimuli that were more than he could handle. He could not handle life, and life would not help him in any way. And when Scout failed to help, Jerry had taken the only step he had seen possible.

Scout closed his eyes and fought back tears when he talked about it. It felt good to get out, but it hurt so much. It hurt to think about all of those feelings. It hurt to realize again that the brother he loved and cheered on for so long had seen no other way than to end it all.

Their talk had fallen to silence. The scoutbot had mostly been a listener up to this point. For all Scout could tell, he was fast asleep. He might as well have been, since it did not matter who listened. Nobody understood that story about Jerry. They just saw Jerry as weak and Scout as too emotional to let it go.

He did not tell the scoutbot why he was talking about his brother. That would have crushed him. All of that work would have been for naught if he just told him he pitied him. Everything would have meant nothing to the scoutbot, if suddenly it was all a ploy to make him feel better.

He was not stupid, that much was clear. You got to know him better, and you could see he was a person. Underneath that metal and behind those lens eyes, there was a person with a thinking and feeling mind. There was somebody who just wanted to get out.

Maybe this was Scout’s chance to redeem himself. He had failed with Jerry and given up on civilian life. Nobody found out about Barry, but why not the mercenary life, you know? If he was doomed to repeat himself, he might as well do it with people who know how to cover your tracks for you, instead of possibly killing another one of your brother’s childhood bullies and getting caught by police.

Either way, nobody was going to see the scoutbot like he did. Nobody else was going to take the time and energy to really think about this guy’s existence. He just existed for them to use, to play his part.

It meant a lot to the scoutbot to play baseball outside. He could see it when they were doing athletic stuff. It meant a lot to him to be able to jump higher. When he could not even best his best, he had gone into such a frantic melt down that it broke Scout’s heart.

Jerry didn’t hate baseball. Jerry loved baseball. Jerry used to dream of joining the big leagues. It was all the other boys’ fault that everything was so hard on Jerry, because they knew they could pick on him, instead of helping him out when he needed it.

It was not as if Jerry’s dream was something he could have accomplished. Scout knew that much. There were limitations and some people had to live with those. That did not mean it was fair or kind though. Just like Jerry, the scoutbot was trapped in a body that was not able to keep up with the dreams in his mind.

Maybe this time, being a full grown adult, Scout could take precautions. This time he would not take the life with his bat. This time he would change what happened to a person’s life.

He was not really sure how to do it though. First he would have to figure out how to pick the cuff and get it unlocked. Then he would need a distraction for Engie not to notice them sneaking out. He would probably go out looking for them where the baseball diamond was drawn. Of course, he would think Scout was that stupid.

While that was happening, Scout and the scoutbot would sneak away at the other side of the wall. With his teammates too bored to care, or otherwise distracted, he would be home free to grab one of the trucks and drive away with the bot. He just had to get those balls rolling.

He turned his head and noticed that the scoutbot’s eyes were closed. Was he falling asleep now? He gave him a bump to the chest that startled him.

“You’re not falling asleep on me, are you?” he teased, with a grin.

“N-no!” the scoutbot exclaimed awkwardly.

Scout chuckled as he nudged the scoutbot again, reminding him not to fall asleep. Don’t want tonight to fail him. If he died already, what would the point be of escaping to Boston?

It was not like there was anybody left there. Anybody who would have been living in Boston still would be dead already. His ma died decades ago. His brothers were mostly gone or dead. Maybe one still lived in the clink though.

All of them were gone. None of them cared about what had happened to him. None of them had even thought to stay in touch. Not that it mattered, he did not care about the postcards ma used to show him. They never sent anything for him, so why should he bother to tell them where he moved to? They did not care, so he did not either.

Still, Boston was a place full of memories. For many reasons, he wanted to show it to the scoutbot. It was a good city for one. For two, there were so many cool locations he wanted to revisit. His childhood home, the park he used to play ball in, the diamond his team won their first championship at, the old middle school, and the best ice cream in all of Boston.

There was so much he wanted to see again. He missed it like he missed his ma and Jerry. They were like parts of him torn away.

It would be all the sweeter to share those things with the scoutbot. It would be a way to make the bot feel like he was more human. Maybe that was all he needed, was a bit of comfort in his body. If people saw him and accepted him, he would not overload like Jerry did.

Maybe they would go to that old hill where he and Jerry used to go. He could show scoutbot that place, where the other kids did not go. It was not some sacred place, but it was rumored to be unsafe for children. Still, seeing as other children would not go, it had been the safest place for him and Jerry to just play catch.

“You must be tired,” the scoutbot cut into his thoughts.

“Nah,” he gave a chuckle, smiling at the scoutbot.

The bot had a look like a happy smile on his face. That made him glad that he was here, that he was right about the bot being the friend he needed. For once, he was not an unwanted entity crowding somebody’s space.

“You can go to sleep if you want,” the scoutbot suggested, “I don’t mind.”

“I gotta help keep you up,” Scout protested. Still, thinking about going to sleep made him feel sleepy. The sensation crawled up to his head and caused him to yawn.

“See? You’re totally relaxed,” the scoutbot teased.

“I’m…it’s cool,” Scout chuckled, “I’m just going to talk some more, if that’s fine.”

“That’s fine,” the scoutbot nodded in response.

“I mean, it keeps you awake, doesn’t it?” Scout asked, uncertainly.

“Yea,” the scoutbot nodded, “I mean, I do enjoy it.”

Scout smiled at him again, “Really? I’m not…I’m not annoying you? You can tell me if I am. I’m not unused to it. People don’t really like me all that much. I pretend a lot…that they do. They don’t. They don’t even wish me happy birthday if I remind them of the date.”

“I feel your pain,” the scoutbot nodded.

“You do?” Scout paused, reeling back a bit.

“Yea,” the scoutbot nodded again, “The guys back at base? They used to treat me the same way. Just an annoying Scout. Disregard his feelings. He doesn’t matter. Oh there goes Scout out the window. Let’s disregard his safety. Nobody cares if _he_ dies.”

Scout’s heart dropped to his stomach. His mouth grew dry. His lungs started taking in oxygen in shallow breaths. He was close to shaking.

He opened his mouth, but then quickly closed it. What was he going to say? How was he going to say it? His brain kept coming up blank though. He was not sure what he wanted to say to him, but it had to be brought up.

“Is that why you came out here?” Scout asked.

“What? Why I came out here?” the scoutbot gave him a confused look.

“To…” Scout winced, “To die?”

The scoutbot stared at him for a long and silent few moments. It was almost terrifying to look back at him. Perhaps that silence was all he needed. The scoutbot had been giving up and was suicidal all along.

“You came out of the base to just give up and die?” he reiterated.

“No no!” the scoutbot finally found his voice.

“Then why’d you- so you didn’t want to die,” such relief hit him that he could not explain.

“Well, no!” the scoutbot replied, “I still don’t want to die! I’ve never wanted to die! Why would you think that?”

“I dunno,” Scout shrugged with uncertainty, “Guess we were talking like…maybe you came out here to put an end to misery.”

“Why would I do that?’ the scoutbot scoffed.

He shrugged, “I don’t know. Why does anybody kill themselves?”

“Good point,” the scoutbot paused for a few moments, “But no, I’m not…I never was suicidal.”

“That’s good,” Scout closed his eyes as he took a breath of relief. Good, he would not have to worry about the scoutbot feeling anxious to die.

“What about you?” the scoutbot asked, with little hesitation.

“What about me?” he replied, a bit taken aback.

“Have you ever felt like life should just end?” the scoutbot asked, nonchalantly.

That felt like such a punch in the stomach though. It made him have to think of Jerry and how he felt after that. Then again, if _he_ died now, nobody would be there to care. There would be no siblings or sons that would cry for him. There were no girls in his life either, so lovers were a forget-me-always situation.

“No,” he finally mustered the strength to say it, “I’ve never felt suicidal. I’ve always been okay in that regard.”

“That’s good,” the scoutbot nodded in approval of that answer.

“Yea,” Scout sighed, “I wouldn’t like knowing you were gone.”

“If you offed yourself, I’d have a Merasmus bring you back so I could punch the living daylights out of you!” the scoutbot jeered.

Scout chuckled, “I’d fight back though.”

“And what a fight it would be!” the scoutbot reached over and gently nudged him with a balled fist.

Scout smiled at him, feeling like it was a gentle gesture of comradery. They were bonding, in a weird way. The scoutbot was definitely a person. There could be no other answer for the fact that he was not just a walking talking machine, but a thinking and feeling individual who cared about Scout’s wellbeing. For that, he was a living being, an important being, somebody Scout cared about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm getting into the swing of the story. Don't worry about the investment in this one. Nobody's dying.


	8. Hand in Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The bad news is, the scoutbot loses his hand. The good news is, he is escaping.

Scout was roused by somebody shaking him with desperation. He groaned, frustrated at being woken. He tried to turn, only to find that one hand was fastened to the bed with something on his wrist. The other thing he noticed was the warmth of a body next to him.

His eyes snapped open and he looked up at the Scout. The man was leaning over him as he shook his shoulders, trying to rouse him. He finally stopped shaking him as he realized that he was awake.

He needed a minute to process though, as he woke up. He was not a Scout. He was not a human. He had no memories or even a childhood. He was a scoutbot.

He let out a sigh, “I forgot my dream.”

Scout also let out a sigh, “Thought you died already!”

“No, I’m alive,” the scoutbot assured him.

Scout smiled, “Good.”

He wordlessly rolled off the bed and onto his feet. He smiled down at the scoutbot, before heading to the door. “Don’t go anywhere, I’m going to go get ready,” Scout explained, “I’ll be back soon.”

The scoutbot twisted his hand a bit, feeling the handcuff, “Nowhere to really go, man.”

“Right,” Scout chuckled awkwardly, “See you!” He rushed out of the door without another word.

He laid there awhile more, before he moved to get up. His arm felt strained after the night of sleeping the way he had. It was not just his arm being connected to the bedframe, but also that Scout’s head had been lying on his arm.

His heart felt like it skipped a beat at that. He put his free hand over his chest as he sat up. It was so thrilling and frightening to think that he had fallen asleep next to the Scout and woke up.

“Be still,” he whispered, as a poetic moment of speech to his inanimate heart.

He glanced over his shoulder at the bed. He could have woken up before Scout though! That thought made him mentally kick himself in frustration. The chance of waking up to look at the sleeping face had slipped from his fingers.

Oh well. It did not matter much now. He could not take back what was already done.

All he could do was wait for now. Damn was he waiting a long time too. With nothing to show how long it had been, he was growing certain that it had been a whole day.

He rocked back and forth impatiently where he sat. Every excruciating moment was just agonizingly boring. Not to mention the steadily increasing discomfort in his arm.

His wrist was pretty sure from the cuff itself. It had rubbed and grinded into the metal of his wrist, leaving scratches, scrapes and even some indentation around the joint. It was strange trying to get to know what his wrist looked like in this way. He could not be sure if any little scratch was already there yet or not. Still, he was pretty sure that the majority of the damage to his wrist was done by the handcuff.

The rest of his arm looked just fine. He was no Engineeer though. There was no way he could actually look at the thing and say whether it was working okay or not. For all he knew, there were screws loose and shit going wrong on the inside.

He did not have those kinds of smarts. He did not even know what a bolt looked like. He was pretty sure it was some kind of bump or ridge in a sheet of metal.

The door suddenly opened and he jumped to his feet. Jolted, he stood with adrenaline seemingly rushing through his body. He wanted to flee, but he was stuck in place. His last option was to fight whatever came through.

The thought that immediately followed was of Scout. Of course it would be Scout. He was probably coming back to let him out of the room so they could leave. They would need to be extra sneaky to get out from under the other mercenaries’ noses though.

He frowned when he saw the Engineer. Oh right. That guy would be returning too.

“So, you’re still kicking,” the man had a disappointed look etched into his face.

“Yea!” he smiled with a triumph. It was small, but it was something. He did not know how, but he managed to beat the Engineer’s calculations and stay alive.

“Hmmph…” the man rubbed his chin as he thought about this.

“What?” the scoutbot asked, a little unsure if he liked that the Engineer was pondering this some more. Who knew what he would try.

“Well, looks like I need to do some investigating,” the Engineer grabbed the door as he stepped out again, “You have fun in here.”

“Wait! Take the cuffs off!” the scoutbot demanded.

“Nah,” the Engineer shook his head, “You need to stay put for a bit.”

“I’m staying put!” the scoutbot protested in exasperation. This was so frustrating and unfair!

“Yea you will,” the Engineer nodded, “Right there in that spot.” The Engineer pointed to where he was by the bed.

“Come on man!” the scoutbot pleaded, “My wrist hurts! Just gimme a chance! Please!”

“You’ll be fine,” the Engineer chuckled.

“It hurts a lot!” he pleaded, “My whole arm hurts! Dammit! It really fucking hurts! I wasn’t doing anything before! Why would I leave! I’m staying right here!”

“Sounds like a _you_ problem!” the Engineer replied, “You’re staying _right_ here! I’m going to have a little chat with the Scout.”

The door slammed shut behind him. The scoutbot was left in terrified silence. Dread crept up, filling him to the brim. Whatever happened with Scout, he hoped that he got away from any harm.

 

It was an hour before anything happened. It must have been dumb luck, because the Scout would not have expected it to work. There was a loud bang outside of the room and it gave him a fright. Jerking in fear, he almost did not notice how his arm yanked against the cuff.

The pain hit after the initial shock wore off. He dropped to his knees, clutching his arm. He bit down on his lip as he looked at the mess of his hand disconnecting from the wrist. A mess of wires and half of the metal was still clinging though, refusing to let the hand leave his body.

Without giving it much thought, he jerked as hard as he could on his arm. He let out a cry of pain, as the wires severed and the metal gave away. It took another jerk to actually free himself, causing the hand to fall to the floor with a clang.

Hissing in pain, he cradled the arm in his hand. It hurt so bad, yet he had to admit relief that there was no blood. He knew there would be no blood, but that was something to be relieved about.

Fuck this hurt. He was not about to let it go to waste though. Since he was free now, it was time to run. Where to though?

He snatched up the hand and decided not to think about it. He would not think, he would just run. So, he ran, fleeing his prison. He ran down the stairs with every step moving forward, never looking back. He darted down a hallway and left everything behind.

He nearly barreled right into Scout. He could have laughed with joy, as he brought himself to a painful halt. With his heart feeling like it was pounding in his ears, and the adrenaline seeming to rush through his body, he could barely feel the pain in his wrist now.

He was grinning from ear to ear when he saw Scout, “Oh hey! Um…my hand came off! It hurts like fucking hell! But I’m free and it feels good!” He could not stop smiling as he spoke. “I ran all the way here! I wasn’t really thinking where I was going. I guess I just figured things would work out. They did too! Look! I’m here! I found you!”

Scout was silent for a solid minute. He was staring at the scoutbot, looking stunned. He was utterly speechless, frozen in place.

“Scout? Is something wrong? Did I come too soon? It was all an accident,” he explained hurriedly.

“Hey Spy, I think that the-” Scout’s voice came from the open room, as the man himself walked out. He paused, looking between his doppleganger and the scoutbot in confusion.

The scoutbot between the two figures, confused and slightly terrified. It was quickly apparent that one of them was a Spy and that the scoutbot may have made a grave mistake by coming out of his room. He stood frozen in place, staring at the two before him.

“Uh…heh…uh…” the Scout who came out of the room was looking at scoutbot and chuckling nervously.

The other became surrounded by smoke. It twisted around a body, until that body became apparent. The rolled up red sleeves turned to pinstriped sleeves. The tall athletic socks and running pants turned into business slacks. The running shoes turned to the oddest almost pointed kind of business shoe.

The Spy snarled at Scout, “Do you mind explaining this?”

“Uh…yea! Uh…Engie’s been waiting for him to shut down,” the Scout explained hastily.

“What? Hey!” the scoutbot exclaimed.

Had he turned on him? Was everything from before just fake? He felt his heart break a little as he thought of that. He had to will himself to be silent, so as not to start screaming and wailing. The sheer frustration made the pain build up in his throat as he swallowed the unshed tears.

“What’s it doing here? What’s it doing out?” the Spy pointed to the scoutbot with an accusing finger.

“Hey! I’m a person you know! Not a thing!” he protested.

“Look, Spy,” the Scout raised his hands defensively, “I’m gonna level with you on this. I may have…made plans…to steal the scoutbot.”

“You what?!” the Spy exclaimed.

“What the hell, man?” the scoutbot exclaimed. Now he was just a thing to kidnap?

“What are you thinking? Scout, what the hell are you thinking?” the Spy exclaimed incredulously.

“I don’t know! I don’t know man!” the Scout threw his hands up.

The scoutbot did not know what to think of this. The Scout was against him now? Were they ever friends? Was it all nothing? It felt heartbreaking to have lost a friend so suddenly.

“You aren’t supposed to be out yet!” Scout turned to the scoutbot, looking desperate.

“Oh merde,” the Spy grumbled.

Scout was about to say something, but he fell silent at a distant sound. The scoutbot tried to train his ears, listening intently. A spark of fear hit him as he realized that the Engineer had discovered that he had escaped and was shouting as he looked for him. Not the best way to look for somebody who was fleeing from you, but it was enough to alert other humans to the bot’s escape.

“Shit!” Scout leaped forward and grabbed the scoutbot by the shoulders.

“Whoa! Whoa!” the scoutbot stumbled, almost losing his balance, “Quit it!”

“You have already angered the Engineer,” the Spy stopped them, “If you turn it in now, you’ll most likely save your skin.”

“No!” Scout protested.

“I’m not going back there!” the scoutbot added.

“Spy no! He’s going to kill him!” Scout protested.

“It’s a bot, Scout,” the Spy gestured to the scoutbot, “Please. Just let it go.”

“No Spy!” Scout protested, with desperation in his voice. Perhaps scoutbot was not just a thing to be stolen after all.

“Heavy! You seen that damn bot?” the Engineer’s voice was coming from down the hall, shouting angrily like a madman.

“It’s _just_ a bot,” Spy said slowly and calmly to the Scout, “It is going to die sometime. Its motherboard will overload and shut down. This is already in process.”

“No Spy! You don’t understand! You can’t- We can’t let him do this!” Scout protested with frustration. He sort of put himself between the Spy and the scoutbot defensively.

“I know he may seem real,” the Spy held up a hand to try and calm him, “But that is what they are designed for. They simulate life. They are meant to be like us, they just aren’t us.”

That hurt a hell of a lot. Sure, this was something the scoutbot was coming to grips with, but he did not need it in his face. The Spy was being so calm about it too. He seemed so rational, like he was the kind of guy that people _should_ listen to.

“Spy, you don’t understand!” Scout pleaded. It sounded like there were tears welling up and a lump building in his throat.

“Don’t get worked up about this,” the Spy looked very worried about the Scout.

“ _SCOUT_!” the Engineer roared. His footsteps were loud as he stomped in their direction.

“Oh hell, Spy! You gotta do me this one solid!” Scout put his hands together in a pleading gesture.

“No! This is not a solid,” Spy waved his hands in refusal and dismissal.

“Please! I’ll do anything!” Scout begged, “You just can’t give him back to the Engineer!”

The Spy sighed and gestured to the scoutbot, “What would you want with a scoutbot anyways?”

“What would _Engineer_ want with a scoutbot?” the Scout pressed.

“Are those the same things? Or are you just trying to gain ground. You’re only stalling which is bringing him closer,” Spy pointed out.

“Please Spy! Please! I’ll tell you everything, if you’ll just help me! He doesn’t need the scoutbot. He’s got eight others on the way anyways! What’s a scoutbot going to be any difference?” the Scout pleaded, dropping to his knees, “I promise I’ll tell you!”

Spy sighed and suddenly shoved the Scout. The two of them were shoved inside and the door was slammed on them. Scout’s immediate reaction to being trapped was to bang on the door.

“Hey Spy! Let us out!” Scout shouted.

The two of them fell silent, looking at each other. The scoutbot had so many questions for Scout. One of the biggest ones was what he was going to tell the Spy, a curiosity about why the Scout really wanted to help the scoutbot. They remained in silence as the sound of the Engineer’s heavy boots came stomping by.

“Spy?” the Engineer inquired, barely giving more than the single word.

“You’re looking for the Scout, oui?” the Spy’s voice asked.

Scout’s hands balled into fists. Anger and frustration was apparent on his face as he glared at the door. The scoutbot readied for a fight, but more than anything he was ready to jump in front of Scout. It was his own doing that he escaped, not Scout’s. He would take the fall and protect his friend.

“You seen that yellow bellied brat and the bot?” the Engineer replied.

He saw Scout’s stance lower. He was ready to run and fight. The wraps around his hands creaked as his fists tightened. His shoes shifted on the floorboards, ready to strike swiftly.

“He headed that way,” was the Spy’s response.

Scout immediately relaxed. His complexion spoke of bewilderment and surprise. The scoutbot was certainly surprised that the man did not just open the door to reveal where they actually were.

“Pretty sure Scout was discussing baseball and a glove left in the laundry room,” the Spy added.

“Thanks,” the Engineer retorted, putting a bit of gratitude in his tone before he stomped off.

Both scoutbot and the Scout took a breath. What a relief that they would not be dealing with the Engineer. What a relief that they had not been trapped in here for an easy reveal.

It was a while of standing in silence, with just the low hum of the scoutbot’s machinery and the Scout’s breathing to fill the air. They just sort of stood there, staring at the door as if it would open of its own accord. When it did finally open, the Spy stepped inside and quietly asserted himself in the room.

“Well? You have twenty minutes before he comes back upstairs,” the Spy turned to Scout, “You have that much time to bring up your end.”


	9. Great Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scout and scoutbot escape together with a little help.

The scoutbot stood aside, clutching his hand as he watched and listened. At first, it was five minutes of the Scout pacing and trying to get the Spy to just _get_ what he meant. After that was a long time spent pouring his heart out until tears just sort of started pouring down his face.

“Alright,” the Spy tapped his cigarette on an ash tray, “I will help you.”

“Huh?” the tear stained face of the Scout turned to the Spy.

“It will require some stealth on your part,” the Spy went on.

“Spy, I’m not Spy material. I just want to get out of here and take him with me,” Scout explained.

“Go about this your way and you will be chased with violence,” the Spy took a deep drag of his cigarette, “The Engineer is a possessive and violent man at times.”

“What do we do then, oh wise and noble assistant?” the Scout taunted. It made the scoutbot giggle a little

The Spy gave the Scout a snide glare, “First off, make him think you’ve run off without running off.”

The Scout blinked at him, a deadpan look on his face, “You’re kidding, right?”

“Keep a low profile. Stay down for a couple of days, _then_ after he has reacted, you make a break for it,” the Spy explained.

“Why don’t I just make a break for it when I’m pretending to make a break for it?” the Scout countered.

“Because once he thinks you’ve run off, he’s going to give chase. He’ll run himself tired, then he’ll calm down and think you’re long gone,” Spy explained, “While he is not suspecting, you make a run for it.”

“I mean,” the Scout hesitated, “That sounds reasonable.”

The scoutbot nodded in agreement, “It _does_ sound like it would work.”

“Alright, yea,” Scout nodded, “Let’s do this.”

The Spy looked between them, with a haughty gaze, “How exactly do you intend to hide?”

“I don’t know! You’re the ideas guy, genius! What were _you_ thinking?” the Scout responded.

“Well, you’re going to have to go stay hidden where he cannot find you,” the Spy informed them, “Because in the event that he does find you, you are dead.”

“Yea, I kind of figured that,” the scoutbot replied, folding his arms over his chest.

“I was referring to Scout,” the Spy gestured to the other man.

“Jeez,” Scout said under his breath. He turned to the Spy and raised his voice, “Do you really think the Engineer would do me in like that? I mean, I didn’t even actually break the scoutbot out.” He gestured to the scoutbot with both hands. “No offense, it’s not like I wasn’t going to.”

“None taken,” he raised his hand to show the detached hand, “It was pretty much an accident.”

“Holy shit, dude!” the Scout exclaimed.

“Well, that might be a problem, if you expected the scoutbot to be any help in his own escape.

Scout took on a thoughtful look. He was staring at the floor, pondering this problem. The scoutbot had yet to put much thought into the actual loss of his hand, so he had yet to come to terms with the fact that the Engineer was the only one who knew how to reattach his hand.

“Spy, you don’t happen to know how to attach appendages, do you?” the Scout finally turned to the masked man.

An eye roll and an exasperated sigh responded, leaving the Scout with something open ended. The scoutbot was pretty sure he knew the answer would be ‘of course not you idiot’ the moment the question came out of Scout’s mouth. It was fairly obvious to him that the Spy would not know how to reconnect robotic parts, or else he might have offered to help. Given he already helped Scout and the scoutbot with something bigger, it seemed reasonable to expect him to offer that kind of help if he had it.

“Well?” Scout asked, with desperation.

“Scout, I am not a mechanic,” the Spy growled at him.

“I’m not a car, dumbass,” the scoutbot folded his arms over his chest again.

“Fine, I’m not a robotics technician,” Spy spat, offering the scoutbot an irritable glare.

“Either way, we gotta hide so…” the Scout glanced around the room.

“You cannot hide in here,” Spy said dismissively.

“Oh, I see how it is! You’re just helping me to get the room all to yourself!” Scout proclaimed boldly.

Once again, the Spy rolled his eyes, “You’ll stay in here if you’re an idiot. Eventually the Engineer will come looking for you and he will demand to see this room. You will need to hide someplace else.”

“Where would he not look?” the scoutbot suggested, “We gotta look someplace he would not see.”

“Not to mention the cameras throughout the base,” the Spy added, “Eventually he will start looking for you on those.”

“I’m too fast for him to follow me on those!” Scout said, with a proud look about him.

The scoutbot wanted to encourage him, but he had to be reasonable, “Even if we were fast enough, he would see something. He would follow what he saw until he found us.”

“Where do we hide then?” Scout asked, his shoulders sagging in a defeated manner.

“I don’t know, but we gotta figure it out!” the scoutbot exclaimed, “There’s like cameras all over the place!”

The Spy was quiet as he thought about this. If anybody could help them with stealth, it had to be the Spy. Even the Spy seemed to be unsure of this though. If the Spy could not figure out a place for them to hide, how could they figure it out?

“The two of you had better start moving though,” the Spy stated, pulling his cigarette from his lips, “Before the Engineer gets back.”

“Wait, you’re not going to help?” the Scout asked.

“Come on,” the scoutbot shook his head. This was a sad day if the Spy could not help them find a hiding place. “We’ll just…wing it,” he suggested.

“Alright,” Scout headed for the door and stepped out into the hall. He waited for the scoutbot to follow him out, then glared at the Spy. “So much for your help.” He slammed the door, then started stomping off in one direction.

The scoutbot hesitated, feeling a little bad. He never liked Spies, and he should have been smart enough to figure out their little problem. Still, he did not think it was good for Scout to take out his frustration on the man who very clearly saved them.

“Scout, you shouldn’t be so mean to Spy,” he insisted.

The Scout did a double take, with a look of disbelief, “Um…what?”

“I said you shouldn’t be so mean to Spy,” he repeated a little louder this time, “Spy tried to help. Actually, he did help. He saved our asses. What could have happened if he had not been on our side the whole time?”

Scout was quiet at that. He turned his gaze away, his eyes looking around for their next location to enter. The doors all looked the same to the scoutbot though. Perhaps Scout just knew the layout of the place.

“Hey!” scoutbot snapped his fingers, “This place has _got_ to be big!”

“It is,” Scout nodded in agreement.

“He can only follow us so far before we lose him,” the scoutbot explained, “So, why don’t we just get as far from this area as possible?”

“He can still follow us, you know,” the Scout replied, “He may be short…and slow…but he can still follow.”

“Would he expect us to go far away though?” the scoutbot countered.

“No,” the Scout shrugged, “I guess we could try it.”

 

They walked for the longest time. They were both tired when they finally stopped walking. They were not even in the same kind of building when they stopped. The flooring was padded with something soft and red. The metal walls were narrower here and there were no wooden objects.

At least the halls here were consistently well lit. That was a plus. It did not even seem to be triggered either, the lights here just consistently stayed lit.

They halted at a door, “Not gonna lie.” Scout raised a hand slowly to activate the door with a key card, “I haven’t been in this area much.”

“It’s fine,” the scoutbot nodded in assurance.

They quietly walked into the deeper area. It was creepy and quiet. The stale air left much to be wanted. Here in this area, it felt like they were more than alone.

Scout shivered and rubbed his arms, “It feels like death is here.”

The scoutbot nodded in agreement, “It’s really freaky.”

“I swear,” Scout hesitated as he looked around, “This must have been abandoned or something.”

“Why would there be so many lights though?” the scoutbot asked, “And lights that are active.”

“True…but still,” the Scout looked around, still rubbing his arms.

“What do you think this place is for?” the scoutbot asked, looking around.

“I’m not sure,” the Scout hesitated, stopping at a panel on a wall, “Maybe this has some answers.”

“Kay, how would you find the answers in it?” the scoutbot replied.

“Let’s see,” the Scout began fiddling with the buttons. Much to their surprise, a door they had not noticed before sprang to life and opened. They stared in wide eyed amazement as the giant double doors slid open and revealed a larger chamber.

Scout walked towards it, curious and full of wonder. Scoutbot hung back, unsure that he wanted to know what was in there. When he finally decided to follow the Scout, he felt rather bewildered at what was inside.

The inside of the door seemed to be a containment center. Each wall was lined with mechanical arms, each of which held a bot. It was a giant system full of machines, all of them deactivated and waiting to be turned on.

“Holy shit,” Scout breathed.

“Did you know about this?” the scoutbot asked.

“No way!” Scout exclaimed.

“This?” the scoutbot looked around, studying how there were so many scoutbots and sniperbots and spybots. There were so many of them, and he felt so insignificant by their existence. “All of this and you didn’t even know it was here?”

“No way!” Scout proclaimed again, “I didn’t know! This is like…this is an army of freaking robots!”

“I know!” the scoutbot replied.

“Shit,” the Scout breathed, “What is Engie doing with so many bots?”

“I don’t know,” the scoutbot shrugged with uncertainty.

They both surveyed the room again. Both of them seemed to get the same idea about backing out. Unfortunately, the scoutbot was not paying attention to what was behind him. Instead of walking right out of the door, he ended up backing into a small table pressed against a wall.

He gasped and just about leaped out of his skin at the bang of the table and the clang of something falling. At least, he would have been leaping out of his skin, if he had any skin. Then again, could that outer layer of metal be considered skin for him? He was not sure about that.

“Shh!” the Scout hissed, putting a finger to his lips to shush him.

“What? Nobody’s here,” the scoutbot turned to pick up what had fallen. He found it just a little bizarre that it was a sniperbot’s head. “Good thing too, this place is now creeping _me_ out more than you.”

Suddenly, the head in his hands moved and the eyes turned on. He yelled and dropped the thing, not wanting to touch it. The fact that it could be on without being attached to a body was terrifyingly creepy.

“Holy shit!” Scout exclaimed loudly, “What is wrong with you?”

“It turned on!” the scoutbot pointed at the head.

“So? These are just machines,” the Scout walked over.

“Mind pickin’ me off the floor, mate?” the voice was eerie as it put emphasis on the last word.

Scout and the scoutbot shared a look of fear. Scout was the one who bent down, carefully picking up the sniperbot head. When he rose to full height, he turned it to face himself.

“Thanks mate,” the sniperbot replied seeming to look Scout up and down.

“Put it back,” the scoutbot took a step back.

“Don’t leave me here!” the sniperbot suddenly pleaded.

“We should go,” the scoutbot insisted, hoping to divert the Scout’s attention.

“Please don’t leave me!” the sniperbot begged.

“We’ve…gotta…go…” the Scout was looking between the scoutbot and the sniperbot.

“At least take me out of here!” the sniperbot pleaded.

“We can’t afford you,” the scoutbot took the head and set it on the table facing the wall.

The sniperbot scoffed, “Do you have to turn me to the wall?”

“Yes! You’re creepy!” the scoutbot quickly pulled his hands back.

“It’s not my fault I was dismantled!” the sniperbot responded, “Besides, you’re not one to talk.”

“I know, I know, one hand,” he waved his disembodied hand in the air.

“Ew…” the Sniper looked at the hand, “No, I meant that you are a bot?”

“Let’s get out of here,” Scout backed out of the room.

“I’m with you,” the scoutbot nodded and followed him out the doors.

“No! Wait! Please! Come back! Please!” the sniperbot called after them.

They did their best to ignore him. They did their best not to think about it. While the Scout was trying to figure out the panel, the scoutbot was having a short walk away from the doors. Once they closed, all of the sound was trapped inside. What a relief.

“Okay so…” the Scout stopped speaking, perhaps unsure of what to say.

“Maybe we should try to pick some other area to stay in,” the scoutbot suggested.

“Y-yea,” the Scout nodded, “Let’s do that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you recognize that sniperbot?  
> Probably not, since most sniperbots aren't discernable from each other.  
> Same sniperbot as in the first story I am SNIP3R.


	10. Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scout believes in Scout.

A wise man probably once said not to run in circles, yet here they were. Scoutbot had been patient with Scout, letting him lead the way. That was apparently a mistake, given neither of them knew their way around here. The end result was that Scout seemed to be taking them in loops and circles in the same areas they had been.

There were endless corridors that made it seem impossible to get back to where they had started. Still, the scoutbot had to remind himself that this whole place was a wall that caged in the bots. Logically speaking, this place had to curve back to the original area.

The building was huge though, with a width that seemed to keep changing. Sometimes, given the narrow passages that curved along the circular pattern the building seemed to be settled on, the building itself seemed narrow. Then they came to areas where there were panels with doors that clearly opened up to more storage for bots. Scout was not fond of seeing all of those bots, so he would rather not look in every single storage area to make sure it was actually a storage area.

Finally they came to a stop, and Scout groaned. He had been groaning for what must have been the past twenty minutes, “I’m tired!”

“You said that,” the scoutbot replied.

“I didn’t really think that the whole entire place would just be a shit ton of bot stuff! Like…where are the bedrooms?”

“Maybe it’s just that one area,” the scoutbot suggested with a shrug, “It might not be all livable.”

“Well, now this isn’t really doable, is it?” Scout asked.

“Come on,” the scoutbot took his wrists, “Pull yourself together. It’ll be fine. One? Maybe two days? It’ll be no problem!” He finished off his words with an encouraging smile. At least he hoped that it was encouraging.

The Scout smiled back at him, “You’re right. We can do this!”

The scoutbot felt relieved, “That’s the spirit! All we’ve gotta do is turn a room into a sort of bedroom. Right? We can camp. It’s not like we’re outside in the weather anyways.”

“That’s true,” Scout chuckled, “My ma used to have me and Jerry with her at work, when she worked in this one office building. She had a private office area with another mom so nobody minded us. Me and Jerry would camp there when ma had to work late.”

“Let’s do that!” scoutbot suggested excitedly, “Let’s try a campout!”

“Alright!” Scout nodded, “But…” He tapped a finger to his chin and looked around. “We can use that desk over there…and its chair can move out of the way. I don’t know where we’ll get blankets though.”

“Hmm…” the scoutbot scanned the room, looking at the materials available to them here.

There was not much that would work for resting. There were chairs, sure. The most they could do with all of that was to rest on top of. There was nothing to make it comfortable.

There was definitely nothing here that would work as a blanket. Most broad things that would be sheets were made of metal. Otherwise, it was screwed down to the floor such as random tables or it was hung on the wall like the panels or monitors.

Come to think of it, what were the monitors for? He peered at one nearby curiously. It seemed to show some dark room. It was barely discernible though.

“Whacha looking at?” the Scout asked.

“This monitor,” the scoutbot replied, “We’ve seen several. What do you think is on them?”

“I reckon it’s the storage rooms,” the Scout explained, “It’s pretty dark. The lights probably turn on when you open the door. I think it just shows what is going on inside.”

“Why though?” the scoutbot asked.

“I dunno,” the Scout shrugged, “Maybe stuff happens. Maybe somebody got stuck in one once and nobody knew where to find them. Maybe the bots can turn on without somebody in there.”

“No way,” the scoutbot shook his head, “They can’t turn on by themselves!”

“They probably could,” the Scout shrugged, “You don’t know.”

 

They ended up talking for hours. The two of them ended up sitting on chairs just separate from each other. They talked and talked, until they could not stand talking anymore. That did not last long, as they eventually started talking about how boring the silence was.

It must have been hours before Scout was suddenly yawning. The scoutbot was chuckling to himself as he watched the man dozing off. He was rather cute when he slept, even flopped on a chair in a lazy way.

He could have been watching the Scout doze off for an hour before he finally came around to realizing what he was doing. He only came to that realization because the sound of voices caught his ear. Terror struck him and he leaped to his feet. He bounded towards Scout and gave him a shake.

“Huh? What? I’m up!” Scout exclaimed, almost falling out of the seat.

“Hear that?” the scoutbot fell silent, pointing towards the ceiling.

“Uh oh,” Scout leaped to his feet and rubbed his face.

“Let’s get out of here,” the scoutbot lowered his voice and started off in the way they had been going.

Scout ambled tiredly after him as they ran. He was starting to wake up, but it did not seem like his limbs agreed with the sentiment of being awake. The scoutbot paced himself, staying close to Scout as they jogged along. They wanted to get as far as they could from the voice following them. The best way either of them knew how to do that was running.

They ran and ran until finally they decided to walk. Neither of them could hear the voice or any footsteps. They would just have to keep moving to make sure that they were not near anybody.

“I didn’t even recognize who that was,” Scout said, rubbing his eyes and yawning. He was evidently still tired and needed sleep.

“I…wasn’t really paying attention,” the scoutbot admitted, “I don’t even know if it was English.”

“Maybe it was Spy,” the Scout bit his lip, “Maybe he got an idea.”

“You think he would have followed us all the way here to tell us his idea?” the scoutbot asked.

“No,” Scout shook his head.

“Scout!” a voice boomed over speakers very suddenly.

The two of them froze, neither one of them wanting to give away their position. Scout made a weird gesture that was supposed to mean watch for something. Watch for what? The scoutbot did not know any kind of sign language, so he could not discern the meaning.

“Scout, I’ve been damn patient with you, boy,” the Engineer spoke over the speakers, “I took some time and took a breather. Now, I’m done waiting for you to stop being a degenerate idiot!”

“I don’t think he’s here,” Scout whispered, “I think he’s doing that from another room. Some sort of control room.”

“Where do you think it’s at?” the scoutbot asked, worriedly.

“I’m not sure,” Scout replied, looking around the corridor they were in, “We should go as far from it as possible.”

“I can see you!” the Engineer barked.

“Yea yea! Piss off!” Scout shouted, shaking his fist in the air.

“You bring that scoutbot back here, _now_!” the Engineer raised his voice.

“No!” the Scout spat, “You’re not killing him!” Scout suddenly grabbed his hand and started walking.

He did not mind the hand touching at all. He followed willingly, happily. He was pleased to be on Scout’s side through this.

“You’re going to play this the hard way, are you?” the Engineer sounded exasperated.

“I’m not playing your games!” Scout shouted again, still marching.

“You’re only gonna circle back to where you started,” the Engineer sounded like he was suddenly humored by all of this.

“Scout, we need a better plan,” the scoutbot urged, “He knows where we are. He’s found us on the cameras.”

“We shouldn’t have- _I_ shouldn’t have slept,” Scout groaned. He rubbed the palm of his free hand against his eye.

“Just bring that scoutbot back here and we’ll let bygones be bygones,” the Engineer announced, “I need the data from that scoutbot, Scout. You can have it after I’m done with the data.”

“Wait…you’re not going to kill him?” the Scout asked, puzzled.

“Wait…” the scoutbot furrowed his brow, or at least tried to. They were running away from the Engineer because of an important reason. Was it not true that the scoutbot was supposed to die?

“I dunno how you reckon you’ll be keeping that thing alive,” the Engineer went on, “He should have overworked himself into melting his motherboard by now. Either way, you two get your asses back here!”

Scout balled his hands into fists, “No!”

“I’m sending Heavy and the others after you boy! Don’t think I’m coming alone!” the Engineer announced.

The scoutbot bit his lip. It was already bad enough that Scout was in a heap of trouble. How he would get out of this though was beyond the scoutbot. If they kept running, Scout was going to get hurt or worse.

“Scout, maybe we should think about this,” the scoutbot said low.

Scout turned to him and squeezed his hand. He had a stern look on his face, like he was determined to do something. It was heartwarming in a sense that made the scoutbot want to cry.

“We’re doing this together,” the Scout said in a low but firm voice. He glanced at the camera, then back at the scoutbot. “I’m going to do what I should have done a long time ago.”

“Um…” scoutbot hesitated. Was he expecting him to know what that was?

The Scout sighed. His fingers intertwined with the scoutbot’s fingers. He looked down at their embraced hands. He was so warm, and it made his heart pound in his chest.

“I made some mistakes in my life,” Scout admitted, “I made many huge mistakes.”

“But, if we keep going they’re just going to come after us,” the scoutbot insisted.

“We’re in this together,” Scout insisted.

“The Engineer’s not distracted,” the scoutbot said, “The Spy was wrong. He figured it out and he knows where we are. He knows we haven’t left.”

“We can still leave,” the Scout insisted, giving his hand a squeeze.

“Yea, but they’re coming,” the scoutbot insisted.

“I fucked up before,” Scout said, his gaze wandering a bit, “But not this time!” He looked back to the scoutbot, meeting his gaze.

“I don’t want you to get hurt,” the scoutbot said weakly.

“I’ll be fine,” Scout smiled, “But I won’t make the same mistakes.”

“What mistakes?” the scoutbot asked.

Scout took a breath, “Scout, I’m going to do with you what I should have done with Jerry. I should have been there for my brother. He needed somebody…anybody… I should have been that somebody.”

“You can’t keep blaming yourself for the same old things,” the scoutbot insisted, “It’s not your fault!”

Scout nudged his shoulder with his free fist, “You can lecture me when we’re out of here, Scout.”

He blinked at that. That was the second time in this conversation that he had called him Scout. It felt like a blessing to be called Scout again.

“I wasn’t there for Jerry, but I’m here for you,” Scout insisted.

“You don’t have to be,” the scoutbot regretted his words as they left his mouth. Still, he had to say them. He had to say it, or else Scout would not understand. “I’m just a scoutbot. I’m replacable.”

“Not to me, Scout,” this time he was saying it more firmly.

There was a long silence between them. They just stared at each other, for who knew how long. The scoutbot was not sure what to say or do. He had no retorts, only the same words to repeat that Scout needed to keep living his own life.

“Scout…you and me,” the Scout smiled, holding his hand tight, “Let’s get out of here. We’ll go together.”

“Okay,” the scoutbot breathed softly, “Together.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this story. I have been trying to get it to end for five chapters now. It went on longer than I even intended it to.
> 
> Some questions may well be answered in a future story...we'll see how it goes.


End file.
